This type of bracketed correction seems snide and often is snide—which is all right when writers are being frankly derisive. But this can be objectionable if the writer is just slipping in a little dig to make himself appear superior to whomever he is quoting. The overuse of [sic] indicates such a smart aleck.
This can be a useful device when it is important to point out an error, but it should not appear after every minor error. Minor errors should either be allowed to stand for readers to notice themselves or else be quietly corrected, except in works of literary, historical, or legal significance in which such correction would be an unacceptable violation of the text.
Excessive uses of [sic] sometimes expose themselves: "Who [sic] shall I say is calling? Imagine going to the pub with a sufferer from square bracket compulsive disorder: "Two pints of Kronenbourg [lager] and a packet of [sea] salt and [balsamic] vinegar crisps, please.
Oh, and can I have a dry [house] white [wine], a [Cornish] pasty and a packet of dry roasted [peanuts]? It would be even worse if he brought along a mate affected by the related condition of tabloid-induced occupational listitis: "Did you hear the one about actor Johnny Depp, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former King of Pop Michael Jackson, chancellor George Osborne and footballer [David] Beckham?
I have lost count of the times I have removed "actor" from the phrase "actor Sienna Miller" in our coverage of the phone-hacking scandal. As with the square brackets, the writer is trying to help, but there is such a thing as too much information if your readers already know who you are talking about.
At best it's patronising and at worst an insult to their intelligence. Let's give them some credit. They are, after all, Guardian readers. You can use brackets to include parenthetical material inside parenthetical material: Chernwell was poet laureate of Bermuda a largely honorary position [unpaid] for ten years.
Be kind to your reader, however, and use this device sparingly. Quizzes on Punctuation Marks. Outside the realm of emoticons, parentheses always come in pairs. They can enclose a single word, a phrase, or even an entire sentence. Typically, the words inside the parentheses provide extra information about something else in the sentence. While walking down the street paying more attention to her phone than to her feet , Catherine tripped over the curb and sprained her ankle.
Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and other writing issues on all your favorite websites. Brackets , sometimes called square brackets, are most often used to show that words have been added to a direct quotation.
0コメント