Tag: parenthesis

Parenthesis is used to enclose information that clarifies or is used as an aside. Its use indicates that writer considered the information less important. In the given sentence, commas can be used in place of parenthesis. But, there is no option available with commas. Parenthesis is correctly used in sentence. Thus. option A is correct. 

The punctuation mark, parentheses ( ), is used to enclose additional or extra information in a sentence, without influencing that sentence grammatically (the single bracket is called parenthesis whereas in a pair, ( ) is called parentheses). The functions of parenthesis include providing additional information, for example, 'The teacher (and his students) thoroughly enjoyed the museum tour'. It is used to enclose numbers while drawing a list, for example, 'Carry these items with you for the field trip: (1) an extra change of clothes, (2) a water bottle and (3) lunch'. Parentheses are used to provide the full form of an abbreviation, example, 'The INU (Indian National Union) addressed the current concerns during the press conference'. These three are the functions of the parentheses, but we have to choose the option that is not a function, hence options A, B and C are incorrect. The colon ':' usually introduces a list of items, like in the second example. Hence it's not a function of parentheses and we choose option D.

The double dash -- contains two em dashes, which are longer in length than the hyphen. Depending on the context, they can replace the parentheses, comma, and colon. It's more informal, compared to the parentheses. It adds emphasis to a group of words that it encloses, hence separating it from the sentence. When the double dash is used to enclose additional information, the surrounding punctuation shall be omitted, since options A and B are true, we can't choose these options. Double dashes add emphasis to the word or phrase they enclose, and when it's used at the end of a sentence, a single dash is used; for example, 'I cannot tolerate her mannerisms--or, rather, lack of mannerisms. Since the statements C and D both aren't true, we have to choose these options.

Parenthesis are marked by these brackets ( ) which contain a word or phrase, sometimes even a sentence that provides additional information. Without these words, the sentence surrounding it is grammatically correct. For example, 'The reporter Mr. Shekhar (along with his intern) came to the press conference.' Here the information in the brackets merely provides extra information and the sentence is complete if these words 'along with his intern' are omitted. Hence the correct option is A. Braces { } (or curly brackets) are used in certain mathematical expressions and in programming languages. Parenthesis is not used for this purpose, hence option B is incorrect. Option C is a characteristic of angle brackets < > which is used to enclose an email address, like <[email protected]> and isn't a function of parenthesis ( ), hence option C is incorrect. Square brackets [ ] are used to provide clarification, for example, 'She [Susan] came to meet me yesterday.' This isn't the function of parenthesis, hence option D is incorrect.

Double dash (--) is used to separate a group of words from a sentence. It puts the focus on the information. 'Men, women, children' are separated with double dash to put emphasis on them. Thus, option B is correct.