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Smylers
<blockquote>you may also wish to note that the "(" and ")" in your question are "parentheses" rather than "brackets"</blockquote>
<p>Don't be so dogmatic! I don't know where the original poster is from, but in everyday speech (and indeed punctuation manuals) in the UK "(" and ")" are indeed called "brackets"; the same may well be true in other places. The word "parentheses" is known in the UK, but it's rarely heard and somebody using it risks sounding pretentious.</p>
<blockquote>Likewise, what you call "speech marks" are (if I understand you correctly) "quotation marks" or, loosely and idiomatically, "double quotes"</blockquote>
<p>"Speech marks" is also a commonly understood term in the UK.</p>
<p>TMTOWTDI! Other people may come from cultures which use different terms for some things. That's OK — as human beings we can cope with occasionally having to take a second longer to read an unfamiliar phrase. It certainly doesn't mean that 'your' terms are 'right' and the other person's are 'wrong'.</p>
<p>Smylers</p>
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