From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1OmSyy-0008Bs-M8 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:54:12 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8185CE07C0; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:53:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.ukfsn.org (mail.ukfsn.org [77.75.108.10]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E128E07C0 for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:53:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (smtp-filter.ukfsn.org [192.168.54.205]) by mail.ukfsn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C16C0DEC41 for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:53:56 +0100 (BST) Received: from mail.ukfsn.org ([192.168.54.25]) by localhost (smtp-filter.ukfsn.org [192.168.54.205]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id wQYJt5fPUgt9 for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:53:56 +0100 (BST) Received: from humphrey.ukfsn.org (unknown [78.32.181.186]) by mail.ukfsn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96B49DEB9B for ; Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:53:56 +0100 (BST) From: Peter Humphrey Organization: at home To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] I can RTFM, but can I understand it: re elog messages Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:53:55 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.35-gentoo-r1; KDE/4.4.5; x86_64; ; ) References: <201008200038.10640.peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> <20100820090346.693f35c1@zaphod.digimed.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <20100820090346.693f35c1@zaphod.digimed.co.uk> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201008201553.55220.peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> X-Archives-Salt: f8e202dd-4f27-4f74-8a3c-256b859ab24b X-Archives-Hash: 833e3e87dc8d79b9e8ef898a12346b0b On Friday 20 August 2010 09:03:46 Neil Bothwick wrote: > Defined usage: > () parentheses > [] brackets > {} braces "Defined"? Defined where? In English*, a parenthesis is a separate expression** marked off from the rest of the sentence with brackets. Round ones, that is. A parenthesis is not a punctuation mark, unless you want to be loose and informal about it. * This is what I learned at school, it accords with all my experience so far except in American fora, and I see no need to change my understanding. ** Thus becoming a "parenthetical expression". I'll get off my soapbox now... :-) -- Rgds Peter. Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23.