Editing Talk:2954: Bracket Symbols

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ummm.  How does editing this stuff work.  Is this HTML?  Why can't we have a gooey?  Also, I only sort of get this comic, but it's not that funny. 
<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="up">Here is some scrolling text... going up!</marquee>
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.102|172.69.58.102]] 05:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
: Have a WHAT?  - [[Special:Contributions/172.70.179.88|172.70.179.88]] 09:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:: A [https://kirby.fandom.com/wiki/Gooey Gooey]. Although I'm not sure how that would help.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.121|172.70.163.121]] 11:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:: I'm sure that should be GUI (Graphical User Interface. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.76|141.101.69.76]] 11:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The "violin" symbols look like an upside-down bag symbol (multiset symbol) to me, moreso than integrals. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.135|172.69.58.135]] 18:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Did my best with my first ever contribution - I know there's a chart feature but I cba to relearn html. Feel free to fix it and PLEASE finish my bad explanations. [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

⌊⌋ are floor brackets (and you can now copy-paste them from here into the explanation as needed) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.33|162.158.126.33]] 06:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

As for the spaghetti, in Python, it'd be a list containing a tuple containing a list containing a set containing an empty tuple. Probably doesn't mean anything specific and pretty much useless), but it *is* legal code [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.164|162.158.126.164]] 06:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yay, I figured out how to use a table! [[User:Qwikster|Qwikster]] ([[User talk:Qwikster|talk]]) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm British, ex 60+ years and I'm sure I was taught in school to use "for first person speech" and 'for quoting others'. I hadn't even noticed printers doing the opposite. But there again I didn't go to Grammar School. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:: [Update] Researching this issue, using " or ' is acceptable in the UK as long as you are consistent in any work. However, most British authored books I have use '. Then, thought I, Douglas Adams did his own type setting, what did he use? In my box set of HHG2G it's '. But then I found a first (paperback) print run of Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency... And he used ". I don't think he would have been fickle, so that tells me the ' in British books is a printers' foible. (Controversially, they were responsible for a lot of extra u's being added to 'Latinise' spelling, even in words with Greek or Germanic roots and the replacement of Fall with Autumn) YMMV.[[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 10:42, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
::: I remember thinking it was to 'save ink'. After all in a 300 page novel with a lot of "speech", imagine how much savings you might have with 'speech', instead... ;)
::: But I'll accept "printer's foible" (or 'prïnter"s foïble'!) as an answer, given that we were still taught to ''write'' with doubles (and using fountain pens). Pity they couldn't have also refused to print Oxford Commas, though, which are complete waste of space (and, in their case, ink!)... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.64|172.69.195.64]] 12:30, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
:I'm British, too, and as I recall my school says sixty years ago, the symbols () are just called brackets and parenthesis is just the grammatical construct in which they can be used.  But you can use dashes or even commas to indicate a parenthesis.  This has been discussed  on such blogs has Ben Yagoda's Not One-off Britishisms. https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2015/12/15/square-brackets/ --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.178|172.70.90.178]] 08:16, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah - I don't know where this weird idea that British people use single quotes comes from - it's not my experience. Generally seems to be double quotes for direct speech, and single quotes for paraphrasing, scare quotes, 'jargonisms', etc. I've added to the explanation to reflect that a bit.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.176|172.69.195.176]] 11:33, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
::Similar vintage of Brit, here. Always taught to write "66s and 99s" on any primary quotation (you'd '6 and 9' quotes-within-quotes and 66/99 quotes-within-quotes-within-quotes). Except books often seemed to be single(-double(-single))-nesting, always assumed that was the US standard, as they tended to have the likes of "color" and "sulfur", too.
::In typing (typewriter, word processor and on into the internet age) I'd use ""s as my primary, unless it 'wasn't really speech'... essentially scare-quotes, or emphasis. Though in the text-only information age (usenet, etc), I'd use some of the others for /Italics/, *Bold* and _Underline_ purposes.
::For coding purposes, I'd have to use whatever the programming language required (I added the note about Pascal's character/string differentation), except in Perl, where I go for a 'sensible' mix of aesthetics/readability and practicality as I make wide use of the [https://perldoc.perl.org/perlop#Quote-Like-Operators full range of options] available to me, in quotation context, whatever doesn't clash badly with any use of q[array], qq{sub or hash}, qx|binary OR|, =~s/whatever is in my/regexp/, etc...  [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.36|172.69.194.36]] 12:54, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The integral sign (and its reverse) in the context of string instruments are the so-called 'F-holes', and they're not just decorative elements but help in the instrument(s) resonate more freely. Other shapes exist as well. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_hole here] for an in-depth explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.151.27|172.69.151.27]] 09:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

「かっこ」[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.151|108.162.250.151]] 09:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Randall missed an opportunity to reference catamorphisms i.e. banana brackets. There may be some better examples missed as well.

Who is that? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.156|172.68.186.156]] 10:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Likely reference to the quote and catchphrase "We can't stop here, this is bat country" from ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.242|162.158.134.242]] 11:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The 'violin' quotes may look similar (but not identical) to the S-Shaped bag delimiters (U+27C5 & U+27C6), though these are normally used in the opposite order to enclose multisets.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.90.10|172.71.90.10]] 13:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The French quotation marks « » are better known as guillemets. They are also used in Spanish, and probably several other written languages. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.167|172.71.142.167]] 15:10, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The single-/double-quotes being recursively embedded with the other reminds me of a short story I once read. It had the form of a tale a person was telling of when he encountered a stranger with a tale of his own. In that tale, the stranger made the aquaintance of a particularly talkative individual. That individual reported the story he heard from a further interlocutor, that story featuring the reminiscences of someone else... ''Which came to a conclusion." ...is the way it ended.' ...and so went that story" ...but of course that was just what was heard.' ...if, of course, you could credit it."''  (It was more layers deep, of course, and with both starting quotes and the paragraph-maintaining standards of opening quotes, which yet still managed to suck you in.) Cannot remember who it was by/what it was called, but obviously the play on the style (a bit more clever than ''just'' "I met a man who said, 'I met a man who said, "I met a man who said, 'I met a man who said "..."'"'") made a big impression on me at the time. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 19:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

'''"~~ I'm being sarcastic and..."''' The symbol ≈ means approximately equal to. This is much used in some engineering writing. "Output level should be ≈1 Volt." In casual work this may be approximated as "~", or "~~" which is less liable to be confused for a negative sign. {{unsigned|PRR|04:02(+:03), 5 July 2024}}
:It can also be used for such as "~240V", AC power supply, and I use tildes an awful lot in Perl for both regexp operations and bitwise negation (though I also like it as a nicely distinctive choice of delimiter character for joined/split data transportation, at times) . As to the comic text, I sort of associate it with the 'decorated' usernames (akin to Dwarf Fortress 'item quality modifiers', but of course not inspired by such, not sure if they inspired it) along the lines of <code>.~·«wIeRdLyReNdErEdNaMe»·~.</code> [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.158|172.70.91.158]] 10:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

== Square brackets NOT used in screenplays / teleplays ==

As the only person to get an Academy Technical Achievement Award for inventing screenplay text formatting (and a produced screenwriter in the WGAw), I’m here to let you know square brackets are NOT used in screenplays, teleplays, or stage plays to denote stage direction. Square brackets aren’t used for ANYTHING in those script forms. This should be corrected (by someone more conversant with edits) to indicate that normal parenthesis are used in screenplay or teleplays to indicate stage direction associated with specific passages of dialog. These are typically called “parenthetical action” or “parenthetical.”  Some stage play formats omit parenthetical action but place parentheses around passages of stage action. But NEVER square brackets. {{unsigned|SMGxkcd|13:11, 5 July 2024}}
:Per this unsigned comment, I've made the requested move from square brackets to parentheses. I don't know if this is correct or not, so maybe additional discussion could confirm or refute this claim. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 13:34, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

== Animorphs ==

Should we start up an Animorphs category now?  It's been referenced a few times now, [[1380]], [[1817]], and also in [[1187]] and [[1360]].  [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 14:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

: has existed since 2014, and this comic is (as of now) tagged with it: Category:Animorphs --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.29|172.70.114.29]] 14:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

:: ('_')b  [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 14:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)