My take: Using parenthesis

While reading a blog or diary the other day, I had to smile at myself after reading half way though at the realization I was reading about finances. I wondered what had kept my interest even to the half way point and realized there were no parentheses in the reading. There was little or no parts of the reading enclosed in parenthesis. The reading was as smooth as the ride I would suspect of a Rolls Royce.

One of my three English 101 teachers told us that words or thoughts in parenthesis could be jumped over -overlooked- and the content of the sentence would still make sense. It works for me. Most of the time. That is until I am confronted with several sentences in parenthesis and at times, a whole paragraph. It is hard to overlook that. Many times, I can not find the second part of the parenthesis and get frustrated, abandoning my attempts to both read the material and make any further efforts to understand it.

I myself try to avoid the use of parenthesis. Anything I have to say relevant to what I am writing could be incorporated into the body of the subject with a little work. Otherwise, I leave them alone. I conclude using parenthesis is like using the sustained pedal on the piano; use it sparingly and only to enhance the melodic and or harmonic structure of your music. Many music teachers will tell you not to use any pedal until after you have mastered the music.

In my opinion, it is so easy to throw a reader off with the use of parenthesis with extraneous and irreverent material and many times ego-tripping. When I am proof reading my own writing, if something is in parenthesis, I say to myself, “I strayed”. If you say that often enough, you could get tongue-tied. Or better still, remember what the old folks used to tell us about masturbating…….
As always,
BB