Brackets. What a strange word. Say it five times, and fast. Clunky, huh? No wonder the madness is limited to a few weeks out of each year. Now, try to apply brackets, as punctuation marks, within a written document. Ugh. Just as in the basketball crapshoot, brackets in grammar are also limited in use. Luckily, there are very few associated rules to memorize.

Brackets are used sparingly when a clarifying word or comment is inserted into a quotation; they also show that you know the original author spelled something incorrectly or used improper grammar:

• My [Steven Tyler’s] get-up-and-go must have got up and went.
• My get-up-and-go must of [sic] got up and went.
• I met Steven Tyler back in the day [1988] in Kansas City; he’s one cool cat.

Sic, by the way, means thus in Latin and should be used sparingly to show that the mistake in the sentence is due to the original writer’s words, not your typo.

You can also use brackets as parentheses inside a parenthetical statement: (If you get my drift [and I think that you do], you see what I mean.)

If you write for a newspaper, you already know that brackets cannot be transmitted over news wires, so you know to either use parentheses or rewrite the material. If you don’t write for the paper and still want to use brackets, please do. Just use ’em sparingly.

And if you’re using the basketball variety of brackets, I have one thing to say: Rock chalk, baby!!!

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk — Go, KU!

Happy trails!

SAK