Toe in the Water

Breaking the Rules

Breaking the Rules

When it comes to grammar rules, there is one that I can remember very clearly being taught. This was way back in the past, probably Jurassic times indeed, but it’s possibly still in force.

Anyway, without further fuss (what, you expected me to say “ado”?), this is the rule I refer to:

Thou shalt not apply punctuation within brackets (parentheses) - this to apply to such things as commas, hyphens, exclamation and question marks and the like.

Probably, it’s an Oxford comma-free zone as well. My point is that I ignore this injunction repeatedly, invariably, and with a huge smile on my face. I’m sorry, but it is just more convenient to be allowed to say what I want within brackets and that means I have to use punctuation where appropriate.

And I use brackets a lot. Where Mr Salinger creates a footnote, I insert a bracket. It’s so much easier and avoids the severe dilemma a footnote brings to a reader. Does he stop reading to see what the footnote has to say? Or ignore it for the moment and hope that he remembers to go back to it later? It doesn’t seem fair to mess with a reader in this way and so I use a bracket instead. This ensures that the extra info can be read without interruption to the flow of reading. Sort of like a quick aside or subordinate phrase to the main intent of the sentence.

Why do I mention this single and personal abandonment of grammar? Purely to explain to anyone who knows the rule my reasons for breaking it. Not that I think many are aware of it. I’ve never had it pointed out to me with wagging finger, at any rate.


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