(non-essential) [explantory]

The difference between brackets and parentheses has never really concerned me until recently. It was upon receipt of some communications where the square bracket was in use which caused me to ponder whether or not its use was technically correct.

I am particularly fond of the parentheses as I have a neverending supply of thoughts, offhand remarks and justifications which cannot be left unstated so I chuck them into a round bracket and keep going.

This is what I found out: use the parentheses () to provide non-essential information, to mark off a part of your sentence that is not part of the main thought; and the bracket [] to insert a clarifying word or phrase.

You'd never believe I used to work as a copy editor and proofreader, would you?

Bookshop Blues

I love browsing bookshops. Rarely do I have an intention to buy something...Amazon is cheaper after all. But when I am thinking about buying a book, I can't skip the part of looking for it, finding it, picking it up and paging through it. There is something so base about smelling the smell of paper printed and bound. Even though the book I will eventually buy will arrive in the post, at least I've had a good look at it first, albeit somewhere else.

Yesterday, because it's impossible to walk past a bookshop without going in or at least looking in the window, I spent some time browsing in one of the more commercial bookshops. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, sometimes I wait for something to catch my eye before lifting it from the shelf for a flick through. This time I happened upon a book on the 3 for 2 table. It wasn't the title or the cover that grabbed me, it was the tag line: "You're nobody until somebody dumps you." Ouch. It made me smile in acknowledgement.

I skipped to the 'It's not you, it's me' bit. Turns out it's probably true. Not comforting, but true.