Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Tog up a sentence with punctuation marks such as brackets. Using the brackets, however, is slightly more difficult than the commas, because the former is employed for short parenthetical explanations or asides to the reader.
Brackets should be used to dress up a sentence the way a beautician dolls up a bride on her wedding day. So brackets are not such attires as are used for a long sentence. It not only gives an ugly look to long sentences, but also makes a copy wobble.
When we were sifting through the pages of “A Tale of Two Cities” in our school days, we must have learnt how to use brackets in a short, crisp sentence. And the quotation, cited at the beginning from page 70 of that great historical novel of Dickens, teaches us how to use the bracket.
Nevertheless, if the whole sentence is within the bracket, let us put the full stop inside.
Else, it goes outside. Square brackets are also used for interpolations: let them [the poor] improve their living standards. Square brackets are generally used to script a commentative piece of writing or in research papers.
In “Writing with Style,” Lane Greene says, “To use ordinary brackets implies that the words inside them were part of the original. But square brackets are best dispensed with when you can shorten the quote instead: She said that the poor could “eat cake.” Or rework it: Of the poor, she said, “Let them eat cake.”
Colons
The systematic use of the colon has died out with the decay of formal periods, writes HW Fowler. Yet, many authors, journalists and teachers use it, but few, if we count on our hunch, do so with nicety. A few consider it to be better and more impressive than the semicolon.
So such writers use colon instead of that. Still a few others use it for they like variety, and do so, showing scanty regards for logic. Except for special uses, the ordinary writers should give up the colon.
The great Fowler has, however, prescribed certain situations where the colon becomes a necessity, and a writer should abide by what he prescribes.
There are (1) between two sentences that are in clear antithesis, but not connected by an adversative conjunction; (2) introducing a short quotation; (3) introducing a list; (4) introducing a sentence that comes as fulfilment of a promise expressed or implied in the previous sentence; (5) introducing an explanation or proof that is not connected with the previous sentence by for or the like.
Examples are: Man proposes: God disposes.
Always remember the ancient maxim: Know thyself. The colon is also used to deliver the goods that have been mentioned in the previous sentence. They brought presents: ornaments, books and sweetmeats.
Dashes
You can use dashes in pairs for a parenthesis, but not more than one pair a sentence. Dashes should be ideally used one pair a paragraph. “You can also use a single dash at the end of a sentence to deliver a final flourish – sparingly,” writes Lane.
The comma and the dash are inimical to each other. Ergo a seasoned writer should keep away from making this error, though many did that in the past. Fowler cited an example of this kind of error. Nicholas Copernicus was instructed in that seminary where it is always happy when any one can be well taught, – the family circle.
The comma should be done away with. The dash used before the end of a sentence sometimes invites a shock from writers, and they do so by using an unexpected word or a short sentence.
Though not always, it is generally better to avoid this practice. You must be surprised, very much surprised – so lately as Mr Collins was wishing to marry you, Pride and Prejudice, Jean Austin. Two write imaginatively a man should have – imagination, Lowell.
The dash is used to resume after a parenthesis or a long phrase. It is also used to repeat the previous words to avoid the danger of being oblivious to what has already been said. The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but the throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse – Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy.
