[lit-ideas] Re: Weigh-in on parentheticals
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:16:17 -0800
Julie wrote
My husband interprets and uses parentheses to indicate emphasis. I say
that parentheses have always indicated, and continue to indicate,
subordinate words or phrases. That if, e.g., a newspaper editor has to
make a column X number of words and the article is too long by a few,
the parenthetical clauses will likely be the first to go.
Your husband seems to have taken punctuation (or is it style?) into his
own hands. He's also—I would suggest—confusing those to whom he writes,
and will likely be confused himself if he intends his own use of
parentheses to emphasize or intensify the word or words between them and
to read what's written to him in the same way.
Parentheses imply that what they parenthenticate is said by way of an
aside (hence, 'parenthetical remark'); sometimes parenthetical remarks
can be sardonic comments; sometimes they can supply information that the
author suspects the reader might not know, by way of clarification.
Parentheses and dashes (although not hyphens) are cousins, and it's
often unclear to me which of them to use. I wish that I could create
italics but I can't (although I can read it them in others' mail).
In any event, I can't see myself writing 'You (idiot)!' 'You, idiot!'
maybe. Remember when italics were indicated by underlining? Newsrooms
were much noisier then.
Robert Paul
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