Brackets are very commonly used in normal
writing, and sometimes the writers aren't even aware they're doing it. For example, one of the above write-ups has a list
- When All Else Fails (Fat Wreck Chords)
- Novelty Forever (Fat Wreck Chords)
- E is for Everything on FAT (Fat Wreck Chords)
in which the words "Fat Wreck Chords" are in brackets. Below that the band members are named, and their instruments (guitar) etc. are put in brackets, just as I have done.
The noder just above me put the words "thereby implying that they are a superclass of angle brackets" in brackets, indicating that those words were parenthetical to the main thought of the sentence. Often this use of bracketing is equivalent to using dashes around the clause. A part of a sentence in brackets (like this, for example) should be omissible without much damage to the meaning of what remains.
Brackets can also be called round brackets, because of their shape, to distinguish them from similar punctuation: square, curly, and angle brackets. Unlike normal brackets, square brackets are not much used in ordinary writing, but in more formal writing they enclose words omitted in the original but supplied to make sense; or where an alteration is necessary because of another omission. Curly and angle brackets are not used in normal text at all.
Printers use the technical term parentheses instead of brackets, and by brackets they mean square brackets. This usage is also prevalent in the United States; this may result in confusion in computing circles, since in that field the terminology tends to originate in the US.
A punch up the bracket is an old term for a punch up or on the jaw or perhaps nose or perhaps some other part.
Edmund Husserl in his philosophy of
phenomenology used the Greek word
epoche, which is sometimes translated as bracketing: a way of shutting off part of the world and concentrating on one knowable thing.