The Parenthesis: A Disgraceful, Disreputable, (Wonderful) Punctuation Mark
That Disgraceful, Disreputable, (Wonderful) Form of Punctuation: The Parenthesis
This article explores the history and literary significance of the parenthesis, from its invention by Coluccio Salutati to its masterful use by Sir Philip Sidney in the Renaissance. It argues that parentheses are not merely grammatical tools but performative devices that create intimacy, delay, and complexity, reflecting the writer's mind and the era's cultural shifts. Through Sidney's example, the piece shows how parentheses can be both a stylistic flourish and a means of expressing the inexpressible, even as they risk being seen as digressive or excessive.
Parentheses, turning the inside of a sentence out and the outside in, ask readers to shuttle back and forth, exercising mental agility that nurtures a flexible set of thoughts and feelings.
- radarsat1
I used to use them very frequently. It took noticing that I was parenthesizing the second half of almost every sentence I wrote (to add a bit more info, like this), to make me go back and evaluate if I could remove them and replace with commas, or just break the sentence. I found that it was possible on almost all cases. Since then, I started doing this automatically as I started writing a "(" and then I kind of naturally stopped using parentheses so much. It was a bad habit that I somehow formed and found a means to self-correct.
- stillpointlab
One of my pet peeves is people opening a parenthesis and never closing it. It's like my brain pushes the parenthetical into a stack and when I get to the end of the paragraph it throws an error.
I definitely overuse parenthesis and I haven't found a way to rid myself of the habit (as I managed to mostly rid myself of the habit of using semi-colons).
- jurip
The one place where I find parenthesis really jarring is in the middle of quotes. I just can't wrap my head around something like
> "I'm sending (via email) an encrypted message", Alice said to Bob
Especially in a book that's been supposedly copy edited. Em dashes or commas or just a plain run-on sentences feel much more appropriate for the general lack of structure in real speech.