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Comment by Beltalowda | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a native English speaker, but when I was explaining some basic programming to my English ex-girlfriend I mentioned "parenthesis" at some point, and she had no idea what they were. Turns out, they're "brackets" in British English; I didn't even know parenthesis is American English.

Even though I typically use British spelling and idioms I still prefer and use parenthesis because it's just clearer and less easily confused with square brackets.

She also kept typing "colour" and such in CSS. Since then I've always made sure "color" and "colour" both work whenever I add a setting of CLI for it. I wish the English-speaking folk could agree on a way to spell things; can you all maybe have a war over it or sort it out some other way?

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I've never thought of "parentheses" as being a US-English term, after all we have the word "parenthetical"*. I'd agree "parentheses" is a bit technical compared to "brackets", but I'd certainly expect any native speaker to know what it meant.

*) Plus there's the very English joke, and no this isn't something generated by ChatGPT:

One day, Shakespeare and Marlowe encountered an elderly man with a very straight back and bandy legs. After the old man passed by, Shakespeare turned to his colleague and said: "Marlowe, if you were to include that man in your next play, how would you introduce him?"

Without any hesitation, Marlowe replied: "Lo! Here comes a venerable gent, his back is straight, though his legs are bent."

Marlowe then said: "Will, how would you put it?"

Shakespeare pondered a moment then suggested: "What manner of man is this, who wears his balls in parenthesis?""

I’m French and the similitude of a lot of words in British is problematic, because I’m never sure I’m not inventing words. Colour for example sounds like a misspell of “couleur” for me, whereas color feels more English. But maybe it’s just because I consume a lot more American media than British.

And then there's French Canadian and French French. I find it weird how a lot of English native speakers see them as 2 different languages, as if they were more different than the Texas and London English dialects. hint : nobody's gonna call you a muppet in Texas.

Seems there are some words seen as high level that a French would immediately recognise whereas the relaxed counterpart make no sense for him. Example : "facilitate". I’m French, this word sounds like horrible "franglais" for me but may look classy for an English (?).

We have 3 different sets of things on keyboards (well, us/western ones, anyway)...

() {} and []

Typically I've seen/read [] as 'brackets', () as 'parenthesis' and {} as 'curly brackets' or 'curly braces'.

So would UK folks use () as 'brackets' and [] as 'square brackets'?

There's also <>, which I (en-US) call "angle brackets".

Chevrons?

> So would UK folks use () as 'brackets' and [] as 'square brackets'?

Yes, exactly that.

> So would UK folks use () as 'brackets' and [] as 'square brackets'?

Yes; "round brackets" is also used, but typically just "brackets".

It's one of those words that exists in both variants of English but actually mean something different. "Pepper", "pants", "fanny" are also fun.

() Brackets, [] square brackets, {} curly brackets, and <> angle brackets were the terms I learned in Canada. Although I was always familiar with the word "paranthesis", it always felt foreign and unnecessarily formal and technical. I believe curly brackets are also known as "braces"?

> can you all maybe have a war over it or sort it out some other way?

The confusion stems mainly from the Norman conquest anyway so don't count on a war solving it.

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