( ) is the third full-length album from Icelandic band Sigur Rós, first released in October 2002. It comprises eight untitled tracks, divided into two parts: the first four tracks are lighter and more optimistic, while the latter four are bleaker and more melancholic. The two halves are divided by a 36-second silence, and the album opens and closes with a click of distortion. Lead singer Jón Þór Birgisson ("Jónsi") sang the album's lyrics entirely in "Hopelandic", a made-up language consisting of gibberish words. ( ) reached #51 on the Billboard 200 and was positively received by critics, although some reviewers found the album weaker than the band's previous album Ágætis byrjun.

Production[link]

The album's title consists of two opposing parentheses, representing either the album's two halves, or the idea that the album has no title, leaving the listener free to determine it.^[1] Members of the band have referred to ( ) as Svigaplatan, which translates to "The Bracket Album".^[2] In the credits of the film Heima, it is referred to as The Untitled Album.^[3] The outside packaging of ( ) consists of a plastic protective sleeve with two parentheses cut out, revealing the image printed on the CD case underneath. There are four versions of this cover art, which consist of modified photographs of nature around the band's Mosfellsbær studio, sold in four parts of the world: Europe, the United States, Australia, and Japan. In Iceland, all four cover designs are sold. The back of the packaging shows an image of a sleepwalking boy, adapted from a photograph by John Yang.^[4] In 2011, Yang's daughter, Naomi Yang, of the band Galaxie 500, said that the band used the image without permission or payment to her father.^[5] There are no liner notes or production credits included, although packaged with the album is a booklet of twelve blank pages, on which listeners are invited to write or draw their own interpretations of the album's music.^[1] A limited edition version of ( ) released in Spain includes a 94-page book of contemporary art.^[6]

( ) was co-produced and engineered by Ken Thomas, who also worked with the band on their previous album, Ágætis byrjun. This is the first album Sigur Rós recorded at their studio based in Álafoss, Mosfellsbær, a small rural town outside Reykjavík, Iceland. The band refers to the studio as "Sundlaugin", or "The Pool". ( ) includes the work of the female string quartet Amiina. ( ) was given more production and recording time than Ágætis byrjun, although lead singer Jónsi considers the new album "less polished" than its predecessor. He characterized the record as being "much more bare and alive and there are far fewer little slick things and much less sweet stuff." The strings of Ágætis were recorded in just two days, while two weeks were given for their recording on ( ). In addition, the former was performed by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, while the latter was done by Amiina. Because of this, the string parts required less preparation prior to recording. The band "just let them 'jam' in the studio until everybody was happy", according to Jónsi.^[1]

Music and lyrics[link]

( ) consists of eight tracks divided in half by thirty-six seconds of silence which, in concept, replicates the separation of two sides of a gramophone record.^[1][7] The first half of the album is "light and optimistic" musically, with a heavier emphasis on the use of keyboards than guitar, and the sampling of Jónsi's voice. The second half is more melancholic, playing with the emotions of the listener, as described by Jónsi. None of the tracks on ( ) have titles; band guitarist and keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson said of this choice, "we didn't want to put titles on the record just because there are supposed to be titles on the record." The songs are listed as "Untitled #1", "Untitled #2", etc., although each track has an unofficial name used by the band.^[1]

Jónsi sang the lyrics of ( ) entirely in "Vonlenska" ("Hopelandic"), a made-up "language" which consists of meaningless words and syllables. Jónsi uses Hopelandic in place of songs which do not yet have lyrics, although tracks on Sigur Rós albums Von and Takk... are only sung in the language. Its names in English and Icelandic are derived from "Von" ("Hope" in English), the ninth track on the album Von, which is the first instance in which Hopelandic is used in the band's music.^[8] The Hopelandic of ( ) consists of one eleven-syllable phrase, "You xylo. You xylo no fi lo. You so.", various permutations of which are sung over the course of the album.^[7] ( ) is made up of material that Sigur Rós had been playing live for over two years.^[1] For this reason, the band did not want to give the songs actual lyrics. Drummer Orri Páll Dýrason said of this, "[the songs] were fully formed and it would have been strange to suddenly insert lyrics into these finished products."^[9]

Release[link]

Pitchfork Media placed ( ) 29th on its list of the fifty best albums of 2002,^[10] and 135th on the a list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.^[11] The album also peaked at #51 on the Billboard 200.^[12] A music video for "Untitled #1" directed by Floria Sigismondi was released in April 2003. The video depicts a dystopian future in which schoolchildren wearing gas masks are playing amidst black snow and a red sky.^[13] In November 2003, Sigismondi's video was given the award for "Best Video" at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh, UK.^[14]

Critical reception[link]

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(82/100) [15]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[16]
Entertainment Weekly	(B+)[17]
Robert Christgau	(C)[18]
Pitchfork Media	(7.6/10)[7]
Drowned In Sound	(positive)[19]
Rolling Stone	[20]
Q Magazine	[21]
Alternative Press	[22]
Stylus Magazine	Lindsay – (A−)[23]
Stylus Magazine	Mueller – (B−)[24]
Blender	[25]
Uncut	[26]
PopMatters	[27]
Spin	[28]
Dusted Magazine	[29]

( ) holds a Metacritic score of 82/100 based on twenty reviews,^[30] making it one of the thirty highest-scored albums of 2002 according to Metacritic.^[31] Daniel Becker of Dusted Magazine wrote that the album is "gorgeous music...the songs are vast, unhurried, and vivid, and that only makes them more powerful." He considers ( ) a "logical extension of Ágætis Byrjun, relying on the same interplay of instruments to create a similarly picturesque and eerily calm atmosphere."^[29] Chris Ott of Pitchfork Media wrote that "Sigur Rós' music has all the depth, resonance and humanity of a Brueghel landscape, and is best appreciated at loud volumes in open spaces, as a soundtrack for scenery, real or imagined."^[7] Sean Adams of Drowned In Sound said that "( ) is as pioneering, unnerving, inspiring, confusing, as lyrically anarchic as every thing that has moved the world, ever" and "why I love music, why this website has this name and why art exists. ( ) [is] yours to discover."^[19] Gavin Mueller of Stylus Magazine found that Jónsi's voice "never [has] sounded more exposed, giving [the band] a strength that Ágætis Byrjun often obscured. The final track’s ultimate climax is nothing short of harrowing, as a crashing storm of frantic drum fills overwhelms Birgisson’s urgent guitar strumming and plaintive wail."^[24]

Andy Kellman of Allmusic felt that, with ( ), Sigur Rós made "only adjustments -- no significant developments -- in the group's sound" and that "The fact that the emotional extremes are few and far between makes the album difficult to wade through".^[16] Ott wrote that ( ) "doesn't shine with the same nascent glimmer as its predecessor. If the band weren't so headstrong, it wouldn't even be a consideration, but from the beginning they've claimed they would change music forever, and that this record in particular would be even better than [Ágætis byrjun]". In addition, he found the album's main Hopelandic phrase repetitive, and that ( ) lacked the innovation of its predecessor.^[7] Gavin Edwards of Rolling Stone called ( ) "impressive" but "remarkably similar" in sound; "it's just packaged more pretentiously."^[20] Ott said of the blank booklet included with ( ), "I fail to see how this tactic enriches the band's cinematic balladry", adding, "evidence that they just thought it would be cool to package the record this way is abundant".^[7] Mueller called the title of ( ) "forehead-slappingly pretentious", and considered the album's nameless tracks "a jab at Yorke-worshippers who couldn’t pronounce the Icelandic titles of Sigur Ros’s previous work anyway."^[24] In his review for PopMatters, music critic Matt Cibula wrote, "I don't think there are any real meanings to these songs, other than the ones we bring to them, each on our own", adding:

My only clue -- and here I'm cheating massively -- is that I saw them in concert a month ago, and these songs were invariably accompanied by hazy images of children, of childhood . . . but even if this stuff is about the end of childhood or innocence or any of those trotted-out tropes, I wouldn't know, and it probably tells you more about me than the opening section of this record.^[27]

Media usage[link]

A snippet from "Untitled #8" can be heard during the trailer for the Nicole Kidman film The Invasion.^[32] "Untitled #7" is featured in the trailer for the 2008 video game Dead Space.^[33] "Untitled #4", as well as "Svefn-g-englar" and the title track from Ágætis byrjun and a video backdrop used during a Sigur Rós concert in Los Angeles, are featured in the film Vanilla Sky. This was the first case of the band licensing their music for a movie; Jónsi allowed for it in part "because he thought the idea of Tom Cruise acting over their music was 'funny'".^[34] "Untitled #4" was played in the American TV series Queer as Folk.^[35] "Untitled #3", listed as its alternate title "Samskeyti", was used in the credits for the Gregg Araki-directed film Mysterious Skin (based on the novel by Scott Heim),^[36] in an episode from the second season of the British serial drama Skins^[37] and in the 2009 film The Boys Are Back (directed by Scott Hicks and starring Clive Owen) during the final shots. Various of tracks off () was used in the American crime drama CSI: Miami.^[38]. The song Dauðalagið was also used in the final episode of season 3 of The Vampire Diaries on the May 10, 2012. Vaka was also heavily used in the soundtrack to the 2010 Norwegian film King of Devil's Island.

Track listing[link]

All tracks are officially untitled, although each has an alternate name by which the band refers to it.^[1]

All songs written and composed by Sigur Rós. 

Personnel[link]

Sigur Rós:

• Jón Þór Birgisson – vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Kjartan Sveinsson – keyboards, guitar
• Georg Hólm – bass, keyboards, glockenspiel
• Orri Páll Dýrason – drums, keyboards

Amiina:

• María Huld Markan – violin
• Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir – violin
• Ólöf Júlía Kjartansdóttir – viola
• Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir – cello

Production:

• Sigur Rós – production
• Ken Thomas – production, engineering, mixing
• Marco Migliari – engineering
• Mandy Parnell – mastering

Charts[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• ( ) at sigur-ros.co.uk
• () at discogs

Look up bracket in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

‌[ ]
Square brackets
( )  { }  ⟨ ⟩ Parentheses  Curly brackets  Chevrons
Punctuation apostrophe ( ’ ' ) brackets ( [ ], ( ), { }, ⟨ ⟩ ) colon ( : ) comma ( , ، 、 ) dash ( ‒, –, —, ― ) ellipsis ( …, ..., . . . ) exclamation mark ( ! ) full stop/period ( . ) guillemets ( « » ) hyphen ( ‐ ) hyphen-minus ( - ) question mark ( ? ) quotation marks ( ‘ ’, “ ”, ' ', " " ) semicolon ( ; ) slash‌/stroke‌/solidus ( /,  ⁄  ) Word dividers space ( ) ( ) ( ) interpunct ( · ) General typography ampersand ( & ) at sign ( @ ) asterisk ( * ) backslash ( \ ) bullet ( • ) caret ( ^ ) dagger ( †, ‡ ) degree ( ° ) ditto mark ( 〃 ) inverted exclamation mark ( ¡ ) inverted question mark ( ¿ ) number sign‌/pound‌/hash ( # ) numero sign ( № ) obelus ( ÷ ) ordinal indicator ( º, ª ) percent, per mil ( %, ‰, ‱ ) pilcrow ( ¶ ) prime ( ′, ″, ‴ ) section sign ( § ) tilde ( ~ ) underscore‌/understrike ( _ ) vertical bar‌/broken bar‌/pipe ( ¦, | ) Intellectual property copyright symbol ( © ) registered trademark ( ® ) service mark ( ℠ ) sound recording copyright ( ℗ ) trademark ( ™ ) Currency currency (generic) ( ¤ ) currency (specific) ( ₳ ฿ ₵ ¢ ₡ ₢ ₠ $ ₫ ৳ ₯ € ƒ ₣ ₲ ₴ ₭ ℳ ₥ ₦ ₧ ₱ ₰ £ ₹ ₨ ₪ ₸ ₮ ₩ ¥ ៛ ) Uncommon typography asterism ( ⁂ ) tee ( ⊤ ) up tack ( ⊥ ) index/fist ( ☞ ) therefore sign ( ∴ ) because sign ( ∵ ) interrobang ( ‽ ) irony punctuation ( ؟ ) lozenge ( ◊ ) reference mark ( ※ ) tie ( ⁀ ) Related diacritical marks whitespace characters non-English quotation style ( « », „ ” ) In other scripts Chinese punctuation
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Brackets are tall punctuation marks used in matched pairs within text, to set apart or interject other text. Used unqualified, brackets refer to different types of brackets in different parts of the world and in different contexts.

List of types[link]

• ( ) — round brackets, open brackets, close brackets (UK), or parentheses
• [ ] — square brackets, closed brackets, or brackets (US)
• { } — curly brackets, definite brackets, swirly brackets, curly braces, birdie brackets, Scottish brackets, squirrelly brackets, braces, gullwings, seagull, fancy brackets, or DeLorean Brackets^{[citation needed]}
• ⟨ ⟩ — pointy brackets, angle brackets, triangular brackets, diamond brackets, tuples, or chevrons
• < > — inequality signs, pointy brackets, or brackets. Sometimes referred to as angle brackets, in such cases as HTML markup. Occasionally known as broken brackets or brokets.^[1]
• ‹ ›; « » — angular quote brackets, or guillemets
• ⸤ ⸥; ｢ ｣ — corner brackets

History[link]

The chevron was the earliest type to appear in written English. Desiderius Erasmus coined the term lunula to refer to the rounded parentheses (), recalling the round shape of the moon.^[2]

Usage[link]

In addition to referring to the class of all types of brackets, the unqualified word bracket is most commonly used to refer to a specific type of bracket. In modern American usage this is usually the square bracket.

In American usage, parentheses are usually considered separate from other brackets, and calling them "brackets" at all is unusual even though they serve a similar function. In more formal usage "parenthesis" may refer to the entire bracketed text, not just to the punctuation marks used (so all the text in this set of round brackets may be said to be a parenthesis or a parenthetical).^[3]

According to early typographic practice, brackets are never set in italics, even when the surrounding characters are italic.^[4]

Types[link]

[edit] Parentheses ( )

Parentheses (/pəˈrɛnθɨsiːz/) (singular, parenthesis (/pəˈrɛnθɨsɨs/)) – also called simply brackets, or round brackets, curved brackets, oval brackets, or, colloquially, parens – contain material that could be omitted without destroying or altering the meaning of a sentence. In most writing, overuse of parentheses is usually a sign of a badly structured text. A milder effect may be obtained by using a pair of commas as the delimiter, though if the sentence contains commas for other purposes visual confusion may result.

Parentheses may be used in formal writing to add supplementary information, such as "Sen. John McCain (R., Arizona) spoke at length." They can also indicate shorthand for "either singular or plural" for nouns – e.g., "the claim(s)" – or for "either masculine or feminine" in some languages with grammatical gender.^[5]

Parenthetical phrases have been used extensively in informal writing and stream of consciousness literature. Of particular note is the southern American author William Faulkner (see Absalom, Absalom! and the Quentin section of The Sound and the Fury) as well as poet E. E. Cummings. Parentheses have historically been used where the dash is currently used – that is, in order to depict alternatives, such as "parenthesis)(parentheses". Examples of this usage can be seen in editions of Fowler's.

Parentheses may also be nested (generally with one set (such as this) inside another set). This is not commonly used in formal writing (though sometimes other brackets [especially square brackets] will be used for one or more inner set of parentheses [in other words, secondary {or even tertiary} phrases can be found within the main parenthetical sentence]).^[6]

Any punctuation inside parentheses or other brackets is independent of the rest of the text: "Mrs. Pennyfarthing (What? Yes, that was her name!) was my landlady." In this usage the explanatory text in the parentheses is a parenthesis. (Parenthesized text is usually short and within a single sentence. Where several sentences of supplemental material are used in parentheses the final full stop would be within the parentheses. Again, the parenthesis implies that the meaning and flow of the text is supplemental to the rest of the text and the whole would be unchanged were the parenthesized sentences removed.)

Parentheses in mathematics signify a different precedence of operators. Normally, 2 + 3 × 4 would be 14, since the multiplication is done before the addition. On the other hand (2 + 3) × 4 is 20, because the parentheses override normal precedence, causing the addition to be done first. Some authors follow the convention in mathematical equations that, when parentheses have one level of nesting, the inner pair are parentheses and the outer pair are square brackets. Example:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): [(2+3)\times4]^2=400

A related convention is that when parentheses have two levels of nesting, braces are the outermost pair.

Parentheses are also used to set apart the arguments in mathematical functions. For example, f(x) is the function f applied to the variable x. In coordinate systems parentheses are used to denote a set of coordinates; so in the Cartesian coordinate system (4, 7) may represent the point located at 4 on the x-axis and 7 on the y-axis. Parentheses may also represent intervals; (0,5), for example, is the interval between 0 and 5, not including 0 or 5.

Parentheses may also be used to represent a binomial coefficient, and in chemistry to denote a polyatomic ion.

In Chinese and Japanese, 【 】, a combination of brackets and parentheses called 方頭括號 and sumitsuki, are used for inference in Chinese and used in titles and headings in Japanese.

[edit] Square brackets [ ]

Square brackets – also called simply brackets (US) – are mainly used to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone other than the original author, especially in quoted text.^[7] Examples include: "I appreciate it [the honor], but I must refuse", and "the future of psionics [see definition] is in doubt". They may also be used to modify quotations. For example, if referring to someone's statement "I hate to do laundry", one could write: He "hate[s] to do laundry".

The bracketed expression "[sic]" is used after a quote or reprinted text to indicate the passage appears exactly as in the original source; a bracketed ellipsis [...] is often used to indicate deleted material; bracketed comments indicate when original text has been modified for clarity: "I'd like to thank [several unimportant people] and my parentals [sic] for their love, tolerance [...] and assistance [emphasis added]".^[8]

Brackets are used in mathematics in a variety of notations, including standard notations for intervals, commutators, the floor function, the Lie bracket, the Iverson bracket, and matrices.

In translated works, brackets are used to signify the same word or phrase in the original language to avoid ambiguity.^[9] For example: He is trained in the way of the open hand [karate].

When nested parentheses are needed, brackets are used as a substitute for the inner pair of parentheses within the outer pair.^[10] When deeper levels of nesting are needed, convention is to alternate between parentheses and brackets at each level.

In linguistics, phonetic transcriptions are generally enclosed within brackets,^[11] often using the International Phonetic Alphabet, while phonemic transcriptions typically use paired slashes.

Brackets can also be used in chemistry to represent the concentration of a chemical substance or to denote distributed charge in a complex ion.

Brackets (called move-left symbols or move right symbols) are added to the sides of text in proofreading to indicate changes in indentation:

Move left	[To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
Center	]Paradise Lost[
Move up

Brackets are used to denote parts of the text that need to be checked when preparing drafts prior to finalizing a document. They often denote points that have not yet been agreed to in legal drafts and the year in which a report was made for certain case law decisions.

From the top: brackets, braces, parentheses, angle brackets/chevrons, and inequality signs

[edit] Curly brackets { }

This section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (September 2011)

Curly brackets – also called braces (US) or squiggly brackets (UK, informally^{[citation needed]}) are sometimes used in prose to indicate a series of equal choices:^{[citation needed]} "Select your animal {goat, sheep, cow, horse} and follow me". They are used in specialized ways in poetry and music (to mark repeats or joined lines). The musical terms for this mark joining staves are accolade and "brace", and connect two or more lines of music that are played simultaneously.^[12] In mathematics they delimit sets. In many programming languages, they enclose groups of statements. Such languages (C being one of the best-known examples) are therefore called curly bracket languages. Some people use a brace to signify movement in a particular direction.^{[citation needed]}

Presumably due to the similarity of the words brace and bracket (although they do not share an etymology), many people mistakenly treat brace as a synonym for bracket. Therefore, when it is necessary to avoid any possibility of confusion, such as in computer programming, it may be best to use the term curly bracket rather than brace. However, general usage in North American English favours the latter form.^{[citation needed]} Indian programmers often use the name "flower bracket".^[13]

In classical mechanics, curly brackets are often also used to denote the Poisson bracket between two quantities. It is defined as follows:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \{f,g\} = \sum_{i=1}^{N} \left[ \frac{\partial f}{\partial q_{i}} \frac{\partial g}{\partial p_{i}} - \frac{\partial f}{\partial p_{i}} \frac{\partial g}{\partial q_{i}} \right]

Angle brackets or chevrons ⟨ ⟩[link]

Chevrons ⟨ ⟩;^[14] are often used to enclose highlighted material. Some dictionaries use chevrons to enclose short excerpts illustrating the usage of words.

In physical sciences, chevrons are used to denote an average over time or over another continuous parameter. For example,

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \left\langle V(t)^2 \right\rangle = \lim_{T\to\infty} \frac{1}{T}\int_{-T/2}^{T/2} V(t)^2\,{\rm{d}}t.

The inner product of two vectors is commonly written as Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle a, b\rangle , but the notation (a, b) is also used.

In mathematical physics, especially quantum mechanics, it is common to write the inner product between elements as Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle a | b\rangle , as a short version of Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle a |\cdot| b\rangle , or Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \langle a | \hat{O} | b\rangle , where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \hat{O}

is an operator. This is known as Dirac notation or bra-ket notation.

In set theory, chevrons or parentheses are used to denote ordered pairs and other tuples, whereas curly brackets are used for unordered sets.

In linguistics, chevrons indicate orthography, as in "The English word /kæt/ is spelled ⟨cat⟩." In epigraphy, they may be used for mechanical transliterations of a text into the Latin script.

In textual criticism, and hence in many editions of pre-modern works, chevrons denote sections of the text which are illegible or otherwise lost; the editor will often insert his own reconstruction where possible within them.

Chevrons are infrequently used to denote dialogue that is thought instead of spoken, such as:

⟨ What a beautiful flower! ⟩

The mathematical or logical symbols for greater-than (>) and less-than (<) are inequality symbols, and are not punctuation marks when so used. Nevertheless, true chevrons are not available on a typical computer keyboard, but the less-than and greater-than symbols are, so they are often substituted. They are loosely referred to as angled brackets or chevrons in this case.

Single and double pairs of comparison operators (<<, >>) (meaning much smaller than and much greater than) are sometimes used instead of guillemets («, ») (used as quotation marks in many languages) when the proper glyphs are not available.

In comic books, chevrons are often used to mark dialogue that has been translated notionally from another language; in other words, if a character is speaking another language, instead of writing in the other language and providing a translation, one writes the translated text within chevrons. Of course, since no foreign language is actually written, this is only notionally translated.^{[citation needed]}

Chevron-like symbols are part of standard Chinese, and Korean punctuation, where they generally enclose the titles of books: ︿ and ﹀ or ︽ and ︾ for traditional vertical printing, and 〈 and 〉 or 《 and 》 for horizontal printing. See also non-English usage of quotation marks.

Corner and half brackets ｢｣, ⌊ ⌋[link]

In East Asian punctuation, angle brackets are used as quotation marks. Half brackets are used in English to mark added text, such as in translations: "Bill saw ⌊her⌋".

The corner brackets ⌈ and ⌉ have at least two uses in mathematical logic: first, as a generalization of quotation marks, and second, to denote the gödel number of the enclosed expression.

In editions of papyrological texts, half brackets enclose text which is lacking in the papyrus due to damage, but can be restored by virtue of another source, such as an ancient quotation of the text transmitted by the papyrus.^[15] For example, Callimachus Iambus 1.2 reads: ἐκ τῶν ὅκου βοῦν κολλύ⌊βου π⌋ιπρήσκουσιν. A hole in the papyrus has obliterated βου π, but these letters are supplied by an ancient commentary on the poem.

Double brackets ⟦ ⟧[link]

In formal semantics, double brackets, ⟦ ⟧, also called Strachey brackets, are used to indicate the semantic evaluation function. The CJK glyphs 〚 〛 look identical except they have added width. They can be typeset in LaTeX with the package stmaryrd.

Computing[link]

Encoding[link]

Representations of various kinds of brackets in ASCII, Unicode and HTML are given below.

^*&lang; and &rang; were tied to the deprecated symbols U+2329 and U+232A in HTML4 and MathML2, but are being migrated to U+27E8 and U+27E9 for HTML5 and MathML3.

Braces (curly brackets) first became part of a character set with the 8-bit code of the IBM 7030 Stretch.^[16]

The angle brackets or chevrons at U+27E8 and U+27E9 are for mathematical use and Western languages, while U+3008 and U+3009 are for East Asian languages. The chevrons at U+2329 and U+232A are deprecated in favour of the U+3008 and U+3009 East Asian angle brackets. Unicode discourages their use for mathematics and in Western texts^[17] because they are canonically equivalent to the CJK code points U+300x and thus likely to render as double-width symbols. The less-than and greater-than symbols are often used as replacements for chevrons.

These various bracket characters are frequently used in many computer languages as operators or for other syntax markup. The more common uses follow.

Uses of "(" and ")"[link]

• are often used to define the syntactic structure of expressions, overriding operator precedence: a*(b+c) has subexpressions a and b+c, whereas a*b+c has subexpressions a*b and c
• passing parameters or arguments to functions, especially in C and similar languages, and invoking a function or function-like construct: substring($val,10,1)
• in Lisp, they open and close s-expressions and therefore function applications: (cons a b)
• in many regular expression syntaxes parentheses create a capturing group, allowing the matched portion inside to be retrieved by the user
• in Forth, they open and close comments in the code.
• in Fortran-family and COBOL languages, they are also used for array references
• in the Perl programming language through Perl 5, they are used to define lists, static array-like structures; this idiom is extended to their use as containers of subroutine (function) arguments
• in the Perl 6 programming language, they define captures, a structure that defers contextual interpretation. This usage extends to ordinary parentheses as well. They are also used to indicate arguments to function calls and to declare signatures of formal parameters or other variables.
• in Python they are used to disambiguate tuple literals (immutable ordered lists), which are usually formed by commas, in places where parentheses and commas would otherwise be a part of a function call.
• in Tcl they are used to enclose the name of an element of an associative array variable
• in joined brackets in a table form going vertically downwards, a ")" refers to repetition of a term for the number of items towards the left of this joined list of brackets.

Uses of "[" and "]"[link]

• to refer to elements of an array or associative array, and sometimes to define the number of elements in an array, especially in C-like languages: queue[3]
• in many languages, may be used to define a literal anonymous array or list: [5, 10, 15]
• in most regular expression syntaxes brackets denote a character class: a set of possible characters to choose from
• in Forth, "[" causes the system to enter interpretation state and "]" causes the system to enter compilation state. For example, within a definition, [ 2 3 + ] literal causes the compiler to switch to the interpreter mode, calculate expression 2+3, leave the result on stack and resume compilation. As a result, a literal constant "5" will be compiled into the definition, instead of the whole expression.
• in Tcl, they enclose a sub-script to be evaluated and the result substituted
• in some of Microsoft's .NET (CLI) languages, most notably C# and C++, they are used to denote metadata attributes.
• in x86 assembly implementations such as FASM, they are used to distinguish pointers from their data.
• in Smalltalk, brackets are used to delineate "blocks" or "block closures", grouping of code that can be executed immediately or later via messages send such as "value" sent to the block. Blocks are full first class objects in Smalltalk.
• in Objective-C, brackets are used to send a message to (i.e. call a method on) an object
• on Unix, "[" is a shorthand for the test command
• in JSON they are used to define an array. (an ordered sequence of comma-separated values)
• in programming documentation and metalanguages (e.g. in descriptions of operator or command syntax), optional elements are enclosed in square brackets. For example, "echo [-n] [-e] <text>" means that the -n and -e parameters are optional.
• delimiting IPv6 addresses in URLs, for example http://[2001:db8:3c4d:15::abcd:ef12]:8080

Uses of "{" and "}"[link]

• are used in some programming languages to define the beginning and ending of blocks of code or data. Languages which use this convention are said to belong to the curly bracket family of programming languages
• are used to represent certain type definitions or literal data values, such as a composite structure or associative array
• in mathematics they enclose elements of a set and denote a set
• in Curl they are used to delimit expressions and statements (similar to Lisp's use of parenthesis).
• in Pascal they define the beginning and ending of comments
• in most regular expression syntaxes, they are used as quantifiers, matching n repetitions of the previous group
• in Perl they are also used to refer to elements of an associative array
• in PHP they are used to determine structures.
• in Tcl they enclose a string to be substituted without any internal substitutions being performed
• in Python and Ruby they are used for dictionaries (a mutable set of key: value pairs, separated by commas) and for sets.
• in TeX/LaTeX they can be used for grouping parts sharing the same local format, wrap parameters, or definitions, depending on the local catcode value
• in JSON they are used to define an object (an unordered collection of key:value pairs)
• in metalanguages (e.g. in descriptions of operator or command syntax), possible alternatives are enclosed in braces, if at least one is mandatory.
• These are also used in music at the start of a stave.
• In Objective-C they are used to mark the start and/or end of a process.

Uses of "<" and ">"[link]

These symbols are used in pairs as if they are brackets,

• to set apart URLs and e-mail addresses in text, such as "I found it on Example.com <http://www.example.com/>" and "This photo is copyrighted by John Smith <johnsmith@example.com>". This is also the computer-readable form for addresses in e-mail headers, specified by RFC 2822.
• In documentation, often used to specify parameters or other user-specified information (e.g. "The command 'echo <text>' can be used to display <text>")
• to enclose code tags in SGML, HTML, and XML (e.g. <div>)
• to target children of a parent element in CSS (e.g. ul.main>li whereas all direct child selectors of the ul.main tag are targetted.)
• in C++, C#, and Java they delimit generic arguments
• in Perl through Perl 5 they are used to read a line from an input source
• in Perl 6 they combine quoting and associative array lookup
• in BNF, they're used to denote nonterminals (e.g. <name> ::= <first-name> <last-name>)
• in ABAP they denote field symbols – placeholders or symbolic names for other fields, which can point to any data object.
• to indicate an action or status (e.g. <Waves> or <Offline>), particularly in online, real-time text-based discussions (instant messaging, bulletin boards, etc). (Here, asterisks can also be used to signify an action.)

When not used in pairs to delimit text (not acting as brackets):

• They are used as less-than and greater-than relational operators, possibly in combination with other marks. In some languages the pair together as <> denotes an inequation ("not equal to").
• When doubled as << or >> they may represent bit shift operators, or in C++, also stream input/output operators.
• They indicate the redirection of input/output in various command shells.^[18]
• Right-angle brackets are used in nested Usenet quoting and various e-mail formats, and as such are standard quotation mark glyphs.

Layout styles[link]

In normal writing (prose) an opening bracket is rarely left hanging at the end of a line of text nor is a closing bracket permitted to start one. However, in computer code this is often done intentionally to aid readability. For example, a bracketed list of items separated by semicolons may be written with the brackets on separate lines, and the items, followed by the semicolon, each on one line.

A common error in programming is mismatching braces; accordingly, many IDEs have braces matching to highlight matching pairs.

Mathematics[link]

In addition to the use of parentheses to specify the order of operations, both parentheses and brackets are used to denote an interval, also referred to as a half-open range. The notation [a,c) is used to indicate an interval from a to c that is inclusive of a but exclusive of c. That is, [5, 12) would be the set of all real numbers between 5 and 12, including 5 but not 12. The numbers may come as close as they like to 12, including 11.999 and so forth (with any finite number of 9s), but 12.0 is not included. In Europe, the notation [5, 12[ is also used for this. The endpoint adjoining the bracket is known as closed, while the endpoint adjoining the parenthesis is known as open. If both types of brackets are the same, the entire interval may be referred to as closed or open as appropriate. Whenever +∞ or −∞ is used as an endpoint, it is normally considered open and adjoined to a parenthesis. See Interval (mathematics) for a more complete treatment.

In quantum mechanics, chevrons are also used as part of Dirac's formalism, bra-ket notation, to note vectors from the dual spaces of the Bra ⟨A| and the Ket |B⟩. Mathematicians will also commonly write ⟨a, b⟩ for the inner product of two vectors. In statistical mechanics, chevrons denote ensemble or time average. Chevrons are used in group theory to write group presentations, and to denote the subgroup generated by a collection of elements. Note that obtuse angled chevrons are not always (and even not by all users) distinguished from a pair of less-than and greater-than signs <>, which are sometimes used as a typographic approximation of chevrons.

In group theory and ring theory, brackets denote the commutator. In group theory, the commutator [g, h] is commonly defined as g⁻¹ h⁻¹ g h . In ring theory, the commutator [a, b] is defined as a b − b a . Furthermore, in ring theory, braces denote the anticommutator where {a, b} is defined as a b + b a . The bracket is also used to denote the Lie derivative, or more generally the Lie bracket in any Lie algebra.

Various notations, like the vinculum have a similar effect to brackets in specifying order of operations, or otherwise grouping several characters together for a common purpose.

In the Z formal specification language, braces define a set and chevrons define a sequence.

Accounting[link]

Traditionally in accounting, negative amounts are placed in parentheses.

Law[link]

Brackets are used in some countries in the citation of law reports to identify parallel citations to non-official reporters. For example: Chronicle Pub. Co. v. Superior Court, (1998) 54 Cal.2d 548, [7 Cal.Rptr. 109]. In some other countries (such as England and Wales), square brackets are used to indicate that the year is part of the citation, as opposed to optional information. For example, National Coal Board v England [1954] AC 403, (1954) 98 Sol Jo 176 – the case report is in the 1954 volume of the Appeal Cases reports (year not optional) and in volume 98 of the Solicitor's Journal (year optional, since the volumes are numbered, and so given in round brackets).

When quoted material is in any way altered, the alterations are enclosed in brackets within the quotation. For example: Plaintiff asserts his cause is just, stating, "[m]y causes is [sic] just." While in the original quoted sentence the word "my" was capitalized, it has been modified in the quotation and the change signalled with brackets. Similarly, where the quotation contained a grammatical error, the quoting author signalled that the error was in the original with "[sic]" (Latin for "thus"). (California Style Manual, section 4:59 (4th ed.))

Sports[link]

Tournament brackets, the diagrammatic representation of the series of games played during a tournament usually leading to a single winner, are so named for their resemblance to brackets or braces.

Typing[link]

In roleplaying, and writing, brackets are used for out-of-speech sentences (otherwise known as OOC, out-of-character). Example:

(What's your name?)

To avoid ambiguity as to whether this is an in-character parenthetical statement or an out-of-character statement, in many circles double brackets are used, as they are unheard of in standard writing.

((How long have you played here?))

See also[link]

• Emoticon
• Japanese typographic symbols

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Lennard, John (1991). But I Digress: The Exploitation of Parentheses in English Printed Verse. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-811247-5. 
• Turnbull; et al. (1964). The Graphics of Communication. New York: Holt.  States that what are depicted as brackets above are called braces and braces are called brackets. This was the terminology in US printing prior to computers.