Parentheses, a la Shmoop. Every Thanksgiving, Jason's mom likes to
slip a very special extra ingredient into her pumpkin pie.
The ingredient isn't Ex-Lax...
...or cayenne pepper. Nope. It's pecans. Yeah...a letdown, we know.
In the world of grammar, those pecans are a lot like parenthetical elements.
It's like this. No pumpkin pie needs pecans. They're just a little something special...
...and it's the same way with parentheses and the words, or parenthetical elements,
between them.
When an author has something to say that doesn't need to be said...
...when he or she wants to clarify something, or provide a sense of direction...
...then it's time to bust out the parentheses.
Say we have the sentence, "Jason's mom
bought Cool Whip to go on her pumpkin pie."
Okay. That's a nice, plain, serviceable sentence. But what if we want to liven it
up a little bit?
"Jason's mom bought Cool Whip...parenthesis... because there is no whip like Cool Whip...
parenthesis...to go on her pumpkin pie."
Here, the parenthetical elements don't just make the rewritten sentence more interesting.
They provide us with important information...
...namely, that Jason's mom has a deep and abiding love for Cool Whip. Mmm, Cool Whip.
What if we have the sentence, "Jason hates that his mom puts pecans in the pumpkin pie"?
Boring sentence, right? Bring on the parenthetical elements!
"Jason...parenthesis...a pumpkin pie purist...parenthesis...hates that his mom puts pecans in the pumpkin pie."
In this rewritten sentence, the words inside the parentheses give us crucial insight into
why Jason hates those blasted pecans...
...and, really, who can blame him? What kind of madwoman puts pecans in a pumpkin pie?
When using parentheses, there are a few important rules to remember. If the words within the
parentheses form a complete sentence...
...the sentence's terminal punctuation stays within the parenthesis.
If the words within the parentheses do not form a complete sentence...
...and the parenthesis is at the end of a complete sentence...
...then the sentence's terminal punctuation goes outside the parenthesis.
Example time! Say we have two sentences, one of them falling between parentheses. The sentences
would read like this...
...Jason stole his mom's pecans so she couldn't put them in the pumpkin pie...period...parenthesis...He
hid the pecans in the toilet tank... period... parenthesis.
Now, let's combine these two sentences into one, placing the parenthetical elements at
the end of the revised sentence.
Jason stole his mom's pecans so she couldn't put them in the pumpkin pie...parenthesis...and
hid them in the toilet tank...parenthesis...period. Okay, there's just one more rule to go over.
If there's a complete sentence within parentheses...
...and that complete sentence is within a complete sentence...
...then the first letter of the parenthetical sentence does not get capitalized...
...and the parenthetical sentence does not get terminal punctuation, unless a question
mark or exclamation point is needed. Say we want to talk about how much Jason loves
pumpkin pie. Let's look at a couple of different ways to write that sentence.
We could write, "Jason adores...parenthesis...we mean he would kill for...parenthesis...pumpkin
pie."
Remember, here the first word in parentheses, "we", does not get capitalized.
Here's another version of the same sentence: "Jason adores...parenthesis...should we
say he would kill for...question mark...parenthesis...pumpkin pie."
Again, the first word in parentheses—and this time it's the word "should"—
does not get capitalized. Parentheses give us a chance to provide a
little extra insight about what we're writing...
...and to fret over punctuation placement, which we all love to do so dearly.
At least we don't have to worry about finding pecans in our pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving...
...or do we?