Hi, my dear teachers, 

Firstly, sorry.

I posted my above question on another discussion mistakenly.

Secondly, I read on English Club's grammar about "brackets": 

https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/sentence/parenthetical-expression.htm 

It says: "Brackets are the next most common form of punctuation for parentheses."  

It looks like "brackets" and "parentheses" are the same, am I correct?

If not, what is the difference between them, please?

Thanks in advance for helping me,

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Replies

  • Dear Danny, 

    Thank you and best wishes,

  • Dear Bijan, we don't usually use braces in the regular text. They are mostly used in some scientific texts, formulas, when you want to show operation order. I know Tanya uses them explaining grammar meaning the choice like this:

    I would like {him/her/them} to do it.

    She means the students have to use one of the given words. But she places these words in a column.

  • Dear Danny, 

    Thank you very much. 

    I got "parentheses" and "round brackets"s are the same.  

    One question, please:  

    In which cases, can we use curly brackets { } in a sentence, please?  

    Thanks in advance and best wishes, 

  • Dear Bijan, I am sorry! I read EC link and it is about parenthesis. I was just inattentive.

    OK, parentheses is plural for parenthesis and it defines such brackets (), i.e., round brackets.

    These [] are square brackets.

    These {} are braces or curly brackets or squiggle brackets.

    So, the word BRACKETS defines ANY brackets, while PARENTHESES defines only round brackets.

  • Dear Danny, 

    Sorry. 

    My question is about parentheses, not parenthesis. 

    Cambridge Dictionary says about parentheses: "the symbols () that are put around a word, phrase.... 

    http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/parentheses   

    Thus, here are my questions:

    1. What is the difference between "brackets" and "parentheses"? 

    2. What does "round brackets" mean in the above link (.......)?

    3. what is the name of this sign [ ] in English language, please? 

    Thanks a lot and best wishes,

  • Dear Bijan, I am sorry but you are wrong. Brackets are a kind of punctuation like commas, dashes, etc., while the parenthesis is a phrase adding some more information to a sentence. In the given example

    Cats (and some dogs) like fish

    AND SOME DOGS is a parenthesis and the brackes () just help us usunderstand it separating it from the main sentence.

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