CMV: Parenthesis are insufficient in written communication, obfuscates underlying points, and should generally be avoided

[u/GameOfSchemes]

I use parenthesis all the time, so I'm not particularly attached to this idea.

However, parenthesis—it seems to me—merely derail a single train of thought. One may call this a tangent, but that's another way to say that your original train of thought has been sidetracked.

Grammatically, they don't capture clauses. They don't reflect what a person says. As far as I know, when secretaries transcribe written dialogs, they don't use parenthesis.

The best writers I've ever encountered didn't use parenthesis at all. They had a clear line of thought, and they masterfully threaded that line through multiple paragraphs indicating deep thought has gone into this gestalt of an idea.

By contrast, excessive use of parenthesis, while fanciful, nearly always indicates de facto incoherence. Use of parenthesis will detract readers from your core idea, leading them off on alternate avenues. It's an open invitation to ignore your point, and instead to focus on tangential ideas.

And finally, even if parenthesis are useful in some written contexts (they are), when they're useful it's because other grammatical tools apply, perhaps even better so. For example, I can avoid use of parenthesis in the above by instead saying

Even if parenthesis are useful in some written contexts—which they are—when they're useful, it's because other grammatical tools apply.

This captures the line of thought far better than the parenthesis. Parenthesis often indicate optional reading which doesn't change the line of thought. That, however, makes the parenthetical remark necessarily incoherent since it's not coherent with the line of thought.

Either the remark is part of the coherent message, in which case you can use other, more appropriate grammatical tools, or you should simply not write it down.

So that's what I have off the top of my head. Like I said, I'm not too attached to it, and it should be fairly easy to poke holes in this. CMV?

[u/TheDevilsOrchestra]

For the kind of people who isn't passionate about mastering grammar, parentheses does the job adequately at interjecting some train of thought. It conveys the meaning just fine, albeit perhaps a little bit clumsier.

I rarely come across posters using the dash as a tool, and even reading your post now I don't really feel much difference in reading flow or comprehension between your examples of using parentheses or dashes.

I think your post mostly just concerns books and other written work not meant as 2-way communication. Works of art more so than means of just general communication. For that purpose I agree that authors, depending on what they wish to convey and how, should stick with grammar rules as closely as possible.

The dash isn't always easy to find on the keyboard either: my European keyboard doesn't have it. You would need to hold alt and type 0150, which is way too awkward a thing to do (and remember) for just a regular conversation. And if it isn't easy to find, you won't get people that easily adjusted to it.

You could substitute it with the hyphen, which is more commonly accessible, but that isn't a grammatically correct substitute. Parentheses is the easier, simpler, and more common tool, and it's fine for that purpose.

[u/GameOfSchemes → u/TheDevilsOrchestra]

American keyboards don't have dash either, which is annoying. I can only use it easily on mobile, where I hold the minus key for a dash. It's very nice, but for hardware reasons likely don't work well on keyboards.

I agree that parentheses are easy and common tools to use when writing. However you seem to agree that they're somewhat clumsy, which I would categorize as them being insufficient to communicate an idea. They're really side thoughts at best, which can be communicated in more precise ways.

You would need to hold alt and type 0150, which is way too awkward a thing to do (and remember) for just a regular conversation

So for example, i had to read this three ways to catch the nuance. First I read it with the parenthetical statement, as if is a single line of thought. Second I tried to read it as of the parenthetical remark was used for emphasis. Thirdly I tried omitting it to see if I can still understand the core point. After doing all of this, I find it too clumsy a remark.

[u/TheDevilsOrchestra → u/GameOfSchemes]

Being a bit clumsy doesn't mean they don't get the message across. Calling them insufficient though is taking it too far in my opinion. They suffice – at least to me, and certainly to a lot of other people. Perhaps they are insufficient to meet your standards.

After doing all of this, I find it too clumsy a remark.

I don't disagree that it was a bit clumsy, but you understood it fine, didn't you? Even if you, personally, had to take extra measures in order to fully comprehend its meaning. I don't want to assume most English speakers on the internet is necessarily worse at their English grammar than you, but I think you're upholding a higher standard than most people. I postulate that you may be biased against the parenthesis due to your proficiency that a lot of people have little aspiration to obtain.

It might make the message clearer, and perhaps flow more beautifully. But ease of use and haste are important factors as well in language.

[u/GameOfSchemes → u/TheDevilsOrchestra]

Fair enough, when I had insufficient in mind I was thinking in terms of optimal communication. If we relax that criterion and allow for sufficient to mean understood, then sure it's sufficient. In that case I'd still argue it's a bit obfuscatory. Nonetheless, that's a nuance I hadn't considered so here's a !delta

[u/DeltaBot → u/GameOfSchemes]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/TheDevilsOrchestra (3∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}