🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1ec221INNi41@GIRAFFE.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> schwarz-marc@cs.yale.edu (Marc Schwarz) writes:

> What is the preferred style for parenthetical expressions? 
> 
> I have seen: 
> 
>    1. Mary had a little lamb (and the doctor died of shock).
> 
>    2. Mary had a little lamb (The doctor died of shock.).
> 
>    3. Mary had a little lamb. (The doctor died of shock.)
> 
> This is actually two questions:  Should parentheticals 
> be dependent or independent clauses?  In addition, should
> independent parentheticals be embedded within another
> independent clause? (This presumes paretheticals should,
> in most cases, be independent clauses.) In practice, I tend
> to use the first example, the notion being that an independent
> clause can stand on its own (no matter how tangential it is).

I generally use example [1] where the text in parentheses is directly in context with
or related to the sentence.  Of course, this isn't hard'n'fast rule by any means;  I'd 
tend to use example [3] where the text in parentheses could be treated independently.
Example [2], however, just looks weird :-)

Cheers,

- Alan.

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