Late one early morning, I was attempting to cure my insomnia when blind inspiration struck. (This is usually better than deaf inspiration, and *certainly* better than blind perspiration.) The Ralpian Consortium Itself had enquested me with a Guide to Bracket Notation. Far be it for a Humble Disciple to question the Will of the Consortium; I slept. But then I got to work on the Quest the next morning. (Actually, I should say "when I woke up" or "next afternoon".) The document you read is the result of my endeavor.
Bracket Notation is one of the Consortium's greatest Approved standards. It allows typed (and sometimes even hand-written) text to better approximate the expressiveness of spoken text (speech). In fact, some might argue that bracketed typed text is MORE expressive, citing the increasing usage of Hand-Bracketing (which will be discussed later) during speech. This issue will unlikely be settled unless the Consortium Approves us a quantitative standard for measuring expressiveness, which this Humble Disciple will lay long odds against. Who cares anyway.
As I recall, Bracket Notation was originally Approved in 1996. The first brackets to be Approved for general use were the versatile, yet often controversial Sarcasm Brackets, and the unique Action Brackets. As these brackets gained popularity and introduced a new level of content to typed text, the Consortium later Approved of Parenthesis Brackets, adding their existing meaning to the official bracket standard, usage virtually unchanged from the English standard. Over the next few years, another bracket-like notation worked its way into general use: the practice of encapsulating one or more words between two asterisks. The Consortium Approved of this practice, now known as Emphasis Brackets, and also added Quote Brackets to the bracket standard, albeit not without some noteworthy modifications from English. Following are typical self-referential examples of each bracket type:
{These are not Sarcasm Brackets.}
[demonstrates Action Brackets!]
(And by the way, these are Parenthesis Brackets.)
*Don't forget Emphasis Brackets!*
We also have Quote "Brackets", which are hardly "brackets" at all.
My discussion begins with Parenthesis Brackets because I suspect that they are the most familiar to a beginning Bracketeer. Parenthesis Brackets (commonly called "parentheses", singular "parenthesis") are used in the same manner as in standard English: to encapsulate an interjected explanatory or qualifying remark. Sometimes even subwords are parenthesized, as demonstrated in the Consortium-Approved gender-neutral personal pronoun "(s)he".
It is a well-Approved (and even encouraged) practice to nest Parenthesis Brackets to arbitrary levels; quite convenient for recursive expression of ideas. However keep in mind that whenever Parenthesis Brackets are used, the surrounding text must be able to stand alone grammatically. Removing the parenthesized text should have no effect on the structure of the surrounding text (other than removal of the explanatory remark).
Example: The capital of North Dakota (where I've never been) is Bismarck (I think).
The thing to note here is that the sentence "The capital of North Dakota is Bismarck." survives on its own. As a general rule, text should not "know" about other text that is parenthesized more deeply. This is not necessarily true of equally-leveled parenthesized text, as demonstrated in the following examples.
OK: The Commodore 64 is more powerful than a Cray Supercomputer. (or so I've been told (by very reliable sources (well, somewhat reliable (Actually, I guess they're not reliable at all. (Come to think of it, no one has ever even told me that before.)))))
Though unwieldy, this would be a correct construction, since each parenthesized phrase refers directly to the one immediately before it. There's an easier way though, which eliminates what we computer scientists call "tail-recursion".
Better: The Commodore 64 is more powerful than a Cray Supercomputer. (or so I've been told) (by very reliable sources) (well, somewhat reliable) (Actually, I guess they're not reliable at all.) (Come to think of it, no one has ever even told me that before.)
Note that sometimes the first method is preferable if the absurdity of quintuply nested brackets is desired.
If all this seems complicated, it's really not. When using Parenthesis Brackets, problems can best be avoided if the base sentence is constructed first, then the parenthesized phrases are added where desired.
Emphasis Brackets are represented by '*' (called an asterisk, or informally, a star). These are very easy to use: simply encapsulate one or more words between two asterisks.
Example: No, I didn't *kill* those men; I just fatally *wounded* them.
Alternatively, we could also type the same thing like so since capitalization is also an Approved method of emphasizing text.
Another Way: No, I didn't KILL those men; I just fatally WOUNDED them.
Emphasis Brackets are the only way to emphasize the singular first-person pronoun 'I' (which frequently needs to be done, especially if one's ego is large). It is also convention to use Emphasis Brackets rather than capitalization when stressing the word "quite", but there is no apparent reason for this.
Since the start and end symbols for Emphasis Brackets are the same, they cannot be nested without considerable risk of ambiguity. That is, a reader is likely to be confused whether a second level of emphasis is beginning, or whether the first is ending. If multiple emphasis levels are *really* needed capitalization can be mixed in.
One final note: It is a practice among some typists to indicate emphasis by placing underscores around and between words, apparently to simulate underlining, or sometimes even forward slashes, apparently to "push" the text slantwise to the right to simulate italics. The Consortium does /not/ Approve of _either_ of these practices.
The usage of Quotation Brackets is rather obvious and mundane, but their status as full-fledged brackets has been confirmed by the Consortium. Unless otherwise noted, "quote" (the symbol used to mark both sides of quoted text) refers to the double quotation mark: the symbol used on both sides of "these three words". The Consortium does NOT approve of the typesetting practice of using two backquotes and/or two apostrophes as a replacement for real live double quotes.
In Consortium-Approved Bracket Notation, one main difference from English is that anything that doesn't belong inside the Quote Brackets does not go inside the Quote Brackets. Sounds logical enough? Well, that's not how formal English uses quotes.
English: The password is "borneo52."
Approved: The password is "borneo52".
Note that the period goes OUTside the Quote Brackets, since there's no '.' in the password! Another instance is the following.
Example: I named my pet Zerglings "Paul", "Sara", "Ralp Jr.", and "Kprxttx".
(Incidentally, the Consortium does NOT Approve of the ill-advised practice of omitting the final comma in lists.)
The convention of replacing periods with commas before the end quote when quoting speech is supported for backward-compatibility. It is always optional.
Example: "I have a cat," Ralp said.
Example: "Ha ha, I fooled you." Ralp also said.
Likewise, commas before the quoted text are not recommended, but allowed.
Example: Ralp said, "I have a comma."
Example: Ralp said "Ha ha no I don't!"
The convention of omitting the end quote before paragraph boundaries when the quote continues into the next paragraph is also supported, however, the quote has already begun, so a new beginning quote is NOT added to the second paragraph! The reason for this is because Quote Brackets do not have distinct start and end symbols, so a new quote would mark the end of quoted text, since the previous quote has no mate.
The versatile apostrophe, besides being used to form contractions and posessives, is further overloaded to serve as a type of quote bracket. Apostrophes (or "single quotes") are used when nesting Quote Brackets: a quoted subphrase within a larger quoted phrase must be encapsulated within single quotes. If it is ever necessary to quote a subphrase within a quoted phrase which in turn is within a quoted superphrase (!), this subphrase goes back again to double quotes. This is actually a little-known, seldom-used convention from English. Should this ever be invoked however, the Consortium highly recommends rewording the text to avoid it.
The other Approved usage for single Quote Brackets is actually based on a convention from the programming language C. Any quoted single character is quoted with single quotes.
Example: My modem wasn't working because it was clogged with '1's and '0's.
The only instance in which single quotes used in this manner should ever contain more than one character is when referring to non-printable control characters—ASCII codes 0-32. Actually character 32 is very printable; it happens to be a blank space. But typing about ' 's can be unclear, so the code 'sp' is used. (Actually, it's more common and usually easy just to type about "spaces".) To type any of these control characters, use the two or three character mneumonic within single Quote Brackets. (If you don't know what on Earth I mean by this, then you may safely ignore it.)
Example: ASCII characters 0, 9, 27, and 32 are 'nul', 'tab', 'esc', and 'sp'.
This is another convention the Consortium expects will not enjoy much use.
The functionality of Action Brackets overlaps much of that of IRC's vaunted /me command. In fact, Action Brackets are more flexible in most regards. The purest use of Action Brackets is to tell what the typist is doing. To do so, one constructs a sentence in which (s)he is the subject in the third person, present tense. The subject's name should be the first word in the sentence. The name is then removed, and the remaining fragment is encapsulated within Action Brackets (usually called square brackets, but sometimes just "brackets", especially if Sarcasm Brackets are called "braces").
Example: [clubs a baby seal to death]
Note that "clubs" is not capitalized for being the first word in the sentence, because we really don't have a complete sentence anymore. For the same reason the period is usually omitted. (But exclamation points are quite welcome.)
Now, actions in Action Brackets strictly *should* be self-referential and present tense. But they don't *have* to be present tense.
Example: [clubbed a dozen baby seals to death yesterday]
Nor do they *have* to even be self-referential, but in this case the subject must be explicit. As this makes the encapsulated text a complete sentence, it should be capitalized and punctuated as such.
Example: [The seals scramble in fear!]
This is usually only invoked during clever narratives in which it is necessary to describe the actions of someone/something other than the typist. Non-self- referential Action Bracket instances should not appear alone, and should be used sparingly.
Although encapsulated actions don't need to be present tense or self- referential (The term "first-person" is avoided since the typist refers to him/herself in the *third* person when using Action Brackets.), they should be at least one of these. There's no point in typing "[Twelve seals died yesterday.]" when "Twelve seals died yesterday." says the same thing. Action Brackets are normally intended to convey a sense of immediateness.
The other method of using Action Brackets is to simply encapsulate a quick description of the action being performed.
Example: [wink]
Example: [sigh]
Example: [leg falls off]
This can also be used to indicate sound effects.
Example: [running footsteps, slamming door, car starting, tires squealing]
(Incidentally, the Consortium has designated the above sequence of sound effects "sound effects suite #1", due to its frequent and hilarious usage. It can be invoked by typing [sound effects suite #1]. Oddly enough, this is the only sound effects suite that has been Approved (so far at least). Assumably the Consortium has plans to Approve other sound effects suites.)
Action Brackets cannot be nested within other Action Brackets.
I have saved the discussion of Sarcasm Brackets for last, for their correct usage can be complex and often confusing. In their simplest form, text encapsulated by Sarcasm Brackets has its meaning negated in a sarcastic manner. The Consortium, in Its infinite wisdom (technically, no finite upper bound has been determined for the Consortium's wisdom), realized that sarcastically typed text—no matter how obvious the typist thinks (s)he is being—is never guaranteed to be interpreted sarcastically. Thus, we were granted the indispensible Sarcasm Brackets. Some critics have argued that explicitly marking sarcastic text as such defeats the purpose of negating its meaning in the first place. These individuals seem to be confusing sarcasm with lying. In the latter, the liar's intent is to deceive his/her audience into believing a statement which is contrary to fact. On the other hand, the intended effect of sarcasm is to convey information in an ironic and/or hilarious manner by stating the obvious denial of said information. The purpose of Sarcasm Brackets is to ensure that any denials made are obvious ones.
Example: {I thoroughly enjoyed Mission to Mars.}
Meaning: I thoroughly hated Mission to Mars.
Subsentences can also be bracketed.
Example: I fluently speak {French}.
Meaning: I fluently speak some language, but it's sure not French.
Example: I {fluently} speak Klingon.
Meaning: I speak some fractured Klingon.
Some translations can be more difficult.
Example: I {think} Starship Troopers was better than Mission to Mars.
Meaning: I *know* Starship Troopers was better than Mission to Mars.
Example: Jef has outclevered us all {again}!
Meaning: Jef has outclevered us for the first time ever.
Usages such as the above are usually best avoided due to the probability of misinterpretation. The sometimes subtle meaning of Sarcasm Bracketed text often lies in context, as in the following.
Example: I am {programming} HTML.
Translation of this would require the reader to know that HTML is often (arguably erroneously) labeled as a programming language. The main point is that the typist is writing HTML code, and the hidden reference is that HTML is not something that can be programmed (in the opinion of the typist (and also most certainly this Humble Disciple)). In this case, it might be clearer to use Quote Brackets to indicate the irony, since this would also show that it is not the typist, but rather someone else who would describe the action as "programming". (The someone else being the misguided geocities web authors who think they are programmers.)
Even questions can be sarcastified. Doing so implies the typist knows the answer to the question. Also, when a bitwise question is sarcastified, the correct (i.e. nonsarcastic) answer is almost always "no" by convention.
Example: {Where are my pants?}
Meaning: I know where my pants are.
The following example is quite noteworthy.
Example: {+}
Meaning: Yeah, right.
Discussion: '+' and '-' are the Consortium-Approved shorthand for the (admittedly already short) words "yes" and "no", respectively; but also for the more general concepts of "affirmative"/"negatory" or "correct"/"wrong". '+' and '-' are valid responses whenever a bitwise answer is appropriate. Related to '+' and '-' is the neutral abbreviation '=' which roughly translates to "acknowledged", "understood", or "OK".
Also interesting is that the interpretation given for this example, "Yeah, right." is in fact inherently sarcastic by its very nature. This phrase cannot be used without carrying a connotative sarcastic tone, due to the high frequency of its use in a sarcastic sense. Encapsulating this phrase in Sarcasm Brackets will lead to a highly unstable result, and should not be attempted under any circumstances. In fact, extreme care must always be taken not to sarcastify an already sarcastic expression. The most obvious way that this error can occur is by nesting Sarcasm Brackets.
NOTE: The remainder of this section may be omitted without loss of continuity to the text, as it contains an introduction to Formal Sarcasm Theory, which is necessarily more technical than the discussion up to this point. Feel free to skip to the section on Punctuation, or read on for an in-depth explanation of the dangers of nested Sarcasm Brackets.
Nested Sarcasm Brackets have been thoroughly considered by the Consortium, and have been emphatically Disapproved. This is certainly sufficient reason to eschew their use, but it is appropriate to discuss *why* the Consortium reached this decision. Take the example sentence,
Sentence 1: I have a cat.
it is a simple matter to apply sarcasm brackets to the sentence as a whole
Sentence 2: {I have a cat.}
thus negating the meaning of Sentence 1 in a sarcastic manner. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, since it involves Sarcasm Bracket usage at the most basic level. The denotative meaning of Sentence 2 (S2 for short) is the same as
Sentence 3: I do not have a cat.
but with the added connotation of sarcasm.
The exact meaning of "connotation of sarcasm" and "in a sarcastic manner" has been avoided until now, since the reader must have at least some intuitive sense of what is meant by this. The "connotation of sarcasm" refers to exactly that additional meaning which S2 has and S3 lacks. Although superficially they have the same meaning, Sentence 2 could be better interpreted as "Not only do I not have a cat, but the very notion is absurd!" This extra sense of irony is exactly what is achieved by typing S2 rather than simply S3.
The problem arises if one were to REencapsulate S2 within an additional pair of Sarcasm Brackets. (WARNING: Do not attempt to recreate the following example sentence outside a level 7 or higher rhetoric containment field, nor without explicit exceptional Approval from the Consortium to do so. Failure to take both of these precautions has been known to result in connotation disruption over a radius of up to 152 paragraphs. Sentence 4 appears here with the Consortium's permission, for example purposes only. Read at your own risk.)
Sentence 4: {{I have a cat.}}
Before the Consortium had reached a verdict on the topic of Nested Sarcasm Brackets, two independent teams of rhetoricists originally decided to study S4 in an attempt to determine its meaning. The first team concluded that S4 is equivalent in all respects to the following sentence.
Sentence 5: {I do not have a cat.}
This seems a logical conclusion to draw, especially if one interprets S4 like a mathematical expression. Inside the outer Brackets we have exactly S2, which is interpreted denotatively as S3. However, the Sarcasm Brackets also carry the connotation of "This sentence is not only false, but absurdly false." This connotation is ignored for the moment, and the result of the meaning negation (S3) is substituted in S4 for everything inside the outer brackets. We now have S5. The sarcastic connotation which was dismissed earlier is made up for by the remaining pair of brackets included in S5. This is known as the Negation Hypothesis of Sarcasm Bracket nesting. Under this hypothesis, nested Sarcasm Brackets are a perfectly legal construction which nonetheless have limited purpose since, for the most part, they simply end up cancelling each other out.
On the other hand, the second research team came to the conclusion that Sentence 4 is very nearly equivalent to S2, but it is even MORE sarcastic. This is *also* a logical conclusion to draw, reasoning that if one pair of Sarcasm Brackets adds a sarcastic sense to the meaning, then another pair should add even more. Under the Addition Hypothesis of Sarcasm Bracket nesting, as it is known, Sarcasm Brackets can be legally nested to arbitrary depths, depending on just how much sarcasm is desired.
Both theories have been met with vicious criticism by their opponents. This is due to the fact that the two theories actually yield diametrically opposed interpretations for S4. One of the main criticisms of the Negation Hypothesis is the manner in which the actual sarcasm resulting from the inner brackets is simply dismissed, never to be accounted for. Shouldn't this be sarcastified by the outer brackets as well? Or should it indeed be added to the sarcasm produced by the outer brackets, as the Addition Hypothesis seems to suggest?
Critics also claim that supporters of the Negation Hypothesis (NH) ignore the fact that Sarcasm Brackets have distinct symbols for the start and end brackets (unlike Emphasis and Quote Brackets). In a sentence encapsulated by Sarcasm Brackets, if a second left Sarcasm Bracket is encountered before a right, NH maintains that the text after this second bracket would not have its meaning reversed (actually reversed twice, which would result in no change according to NH). However, shouldn't the task of terminating the scope of the negation of Sarcasm Brackets be strictly limited to *right* Sarcasm Brackets? AH followers think so. Were Sarcasm Brackets delimited on both sides by, say, the pipe character '|', then NH would be more credible, they say. But the difference of start and end symbols allows a reader to count exactly how many levels of sarcasm the typist intended.
In fact, this very point led the same Addition Hypothesis team to pursue a unified theory of Quantum Sarcasm, in order to standardize exactly what would be meant under AH by, say, four levels of Sarcasm Brackets. Unfortunately, their lab was destroyed and all rhetoricists killed when an experiment went horribly awry. Details are still unknown, but the accident appears to have involved an attempted measurement of the sarcasm emitted by a sentence containing Sarcasm Brackets nested twenty-one deep. The violent explosion breached a level 12 rhetoric containment field and flooded the surrounding municipalities with massive levels of punctuation.
Out of respect to the research team and their families, critics of AH are generally much less vocal, but Addition Hypothesis is just as (un)popular as Negation Hypothesis. The problem opponents most often point out is that AH apparently ignores the fact that Sarcasm Brackets by definition posess the fundamental property of meaning reversal. In AH, out of a set of nested Sarcasm Brackets, one and only one pair will exhibit this property.
Due to the severe disparity in meaning between the interpretations derived by these hypotheses, the Consortium has refused to Approve of either, since the risk of ambiguity is too great. (For example, imagine the misinterpretation that would ensue if a NH supporter typed S4 to an AH supporter!) The Consortium has Disapproved of all use of nested Sarcasm Brackets until further notice. (It has not, however, explicitly Disapproved of either nesting hypothesis (yet), which is good news for any nesting fans.)
A small school of thought, called Compromisationalism, has proposed that only ODD numbers of Sarcasm Brackets should ever be used, since AH and NH more or less agree on the meaning of sentences bracketed in this fashion. In other words, Sarcasm Brackets can be nested 3 or 5 deep, but never 2 or 4. An interesting thought to be sure, since it takes advantage of the fact that a sentence three-deep in Sarcasm Brackets, under Addition Hypothesis, would have its meaning reversed (and its sarcasm tripled), and under Negation Hypothesis, would have its meaning triply-reversed which would be equivalent to a single reversal. However, this proposal was immediately and explicitly Disapproved by the Consortium Itself, on the grounds of being "an inconsistent, inelegant work-around which altogether avoids addressing the true issue at hand." So, the few remaining Compromisationalists have been completely dismissed by all mainstream bracketeers.
Often the end of a sentence is also the end of a region of bracketed text. When this occurs, the period, question mark, or exclamation point at the end of the sentence is bracketed if and only if the entire sentence falls within the scope of these brackets. (Action Brackets are ordinarily exempt from this rule. See the section on Action Brackets for a specific discussion of their proper punctuation.) In fact, the parenthesized text in this very paragraph serves as an example of proper period inclusion.
Example: I just saw my favorite Star Trek movie (First Contact).
In this case the brackets do not encapsulate the entire sentence, thus the period properly appears outside the brackets.
Now that the five bracket types have each been discussed separately, the next logical question is: How can the brackets be used together? Most bracket combinations are perfectly legal, but a few bracket types are unnestable. Furthermore, many bracket combinations are not associative. Bracket associativity refers to whether or not the meaning of a sentence which contains two pairs of brackets which completely overlap (that is, both encapsulate exactly the same text, no more, no less), is at all altered if the outer brackets and the inner brackets are swapped. For instance,
Example 1: Ralp said "{I have a cat.}"
Example 2: Ralp said {"I have a cat."}
examples 1 and 2 obviously do NOT mean the same thing. (However, example 2 actually entails example 1, but this is a topic for Formal Sarcasm Theory, and beyond the scope of this text.) On the other hand,
Example 3: ({But Ralp really does have a cat!})
Example 4: {(But Ralp really does have a cat!)}
examples 3 and 4 *are* equivalent in meaning, therefore Parenthesis Brackets and Sarcasm Brackets are said to be associative. (By convention, example 3 is used more often, but there is no reason for this.) Be sure to note that the order of the start brackets is opposite the order of the end brackets! Constructions such as
Bad Example: ({But Ralp really does have a cat!)}
are not legal. If one bracket is within the scope of another set of brackets, so must be the single bracket's mate. This is not so much a problem in the bad example above, since the intended meaning is obvious, but extreme ambiguity can arise with things such as:
Worse Example: Ralp {said "I have} a cat."
Typists producing garbage like this should be shot on sight.
The following table indicates acceptable nesting policies between all combinations of bracket types. The outer bracket is listed to the left, and the inner bracket is listed on top. A '#' indicates that the brackets are associative, and can be used within one another. A '+' indicates the inner bracket can legally be used within the outer, but they are not associative. The legal use applies to incomplete as well as complete overlap. A 'X' indicating that the inner bracket type cannot appear within the outer bracket type. Also, a few bracket combinations are followed by numbers in this table. This means that additional information of that particular combination follows.
| Inner | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ( ) | { } | [ ] | " " | * * | ||
| O u t e r |
( ) | # | # | # | + | # |
| { } | # | X0 | + | + | # | |
| [ ] | # | + | X | + | # | |
| " " | + | + | X1 | +2 | + | |
| * * | #3 | #3 | #3 | + | X | |
Note 0: NEVER nest Sarcasm Brackets. This cannot be stressed strongly enough.
Note 1: Action-Bracketed text can appear within Quote Brackets, but it loses its inherent sense of an immediate event.
Example 1: Ralp typed "[head implodes]".
Example 2: Nested Sarcasm Brackets!? [head implodes!!]
Obviously, Example 1 does not invoke the imploding head that Example 2 does. Action Brackets are said to become "inert" within Quote Brackets, and can be regarded as nonbracket characters.
Note 2: When nesting Quote Brackets, be sure to use single quotes for the inner brackets.
Note 3: If Emphasis Brackets and either Parenthesis, Sarcasm, or Action Brackets completely overlap, then it is strongly recommended to place the Emphasis Brackets inside of the others.
A very interesting Approved standard is that of Hand-Bracketing, which is probably already well-known in the practice of "air quotes". In fact, all five bracket types can be invoked during normal speech via a clever gesture using both hands. Hand-Bracket gestures should be started at the same time as the speech they are meant to encapsulate. The indicated brackets are understood to apply to the phrase or sentence being spoken. In all Hand-Bracket gestures, the movements of the left hand should mirror those of the right as closely as possible.
The Proposed Extensions section is a short list of suggested additions to the Bracket Notation standard which are currently Unapproved as of this writing, unless otherwise noted. Please note that "Unapproved" does *not* mean "Disapproved", rather, it means that the Consortium has either not decided upon, or not announced its official position on the topic. Be patient; the Ralpian Consortium is a very busy Supreme Force. Since the Consortium may Disapprove of any of these extensions at a later date, it is highly recommended that the most recently published edition of this document be referenced prior to their usage to check for announced Disapproval. Use as-is at your own risk.
The Consortium has not Approved any use for angled brackets, also known as HTML brackets, or less-than/greater-than signs. These can still be used, to a limited extent as general-purpose "Miscellaneous Brackets". The following was typed to me by a Consortiumist.
Example: I have come to the conclusion that over 50% of computer keyboards are lacking a <SHIFT> key because hardly ANYONE uses capital letters!
(Quotation Brackets could probably also have been used here.)
This Humble Disciple used Angled Brackets around the members of a set which I was listing, since the standard practice in mathematical notation is to use curly brackets around sets. However, I did not want these to be confused with Sarcasm Brackets, so opted for angled brackets.
You are reasonably safe using angled brackets in a generic fashion, as long as you do so sparingly and do not use them to impart any intrinsic added meaning to the encapsulated text. While not explicitly Approved, this practice is at least tolerated by the Consortium, until it finds a better use for angled brackets.
Second-Order Sarcasm Calculus is a topic of much research in Formal Sarcasm Theory. It is the notational system which shows the most promise of any method for resolving the conflict of nested Sarcasm Brackets. Second-Order Sarcasm Calculus (SOSC) specifically refers to the application of bracket modifiers to Sarcasm Brackets. SOSC is actually a subset of a broader notational system known as Second-Order Bracket Notation, which allows the application of a variety of bracket modifiers to any brackets which encapsulate text.
These bracket modifiers alter the meaning of the brackets to which they are applied in various ways. The most common bracket modifiers include Parenthesis Brackets, Emphasis Brackets, question marks, and Sarcasm Brackets. While posessing the same names, symbols, and fundamental meanings as the brackets discussed earlier in this document, these bracket modifiers are different than the first-order (that is, ordinary) brackets to which they are related. Bracket modifiers are applied uniformly to the start and end brackets, resulting in sentence constructions such as the following examples.
Example: *{*I have a cat.*}*
Meaning: I CERTAINLY don't have a cat! Hell no.
The Emphasis Brackets in this example do not apply directly to the sentence itself, but serve to emphasize the sarcasm. There may appear to be some ambiguity here as to which Emphasis Bracket is mated with which, but recall that Emphasis Brackets are not nestable, therefore a beginning Emphasis Bracket is always mated with the most immediate following bracket. Further, it is clear that these are second-order bracket modifiers and not first-order brackets since each pair encapsulates only an unmated bracket, and no actual text.
Example: {?I have a cat.}?
Meaning: I don't have a cat. Well, I don't think I do anyway. I might.
The question mark modifiers indicate uncertainty in the application of sarcasm. They are not brackets; they appear only after the sarcasm brackets. Similarly, some SOSCists favor {! …sentence… }! as an alternative to second-order emphasis brackets. And now, for a truly bizarre SOSC construction:
Example: {{}This sentence is false.{}}
Meaning: This sentence is obviously false!
The Sarcasm Brackets which encapsulate the sentence are themselves sarcastified! This is not to be confused with the following sentence.
Example: ~{~This sentence is false.~}~
Meaning: This sentence really is false. Seriously.
The tildes, as used here, are known as explicit deconstructors in SOSC. Their purpose stems from the basic assumption that unbracketed text cannot be guaranteed to convey sarcasm, regardless of how obviously sarcastic the text is. (This is in fact the second Fundamental Premise of Formal Sarcasm Theory, and the very reason that Sarcasm Brackets are needed at all.) The inverse of this is also true: unbracketed text cannot be guaranteed NOT to convey sarcasm. To avoid misinterpretation, explicit deconstructors can be used to modify a pair of Sarcasm Brackets, thus specifically negating the possibility of intended sarcasm.
Second-Order Sarcasm Calculus sentence contructions allow for a very wide range of expression in a concise and efficient manner. However, the system has a steeper-than-average learning curve; some subtle SOSC constructions can be misinterpreted by even by those experienced with its use, and any SOSC sentence can be *extremely* confusing to a reader who has never been introduced to the topic before. It can make for a difficult method of communication due to the complexity of both its application and interpretation. Avoid using Second-Order Bracket Notation without further study. (The *last* thing we need is a bunch of typists out there misusing brackets, hence this document!) Even then, use at risk of misinterpretation.
One of the most popular proposed applications of angled brackets, XBN allows for a practically unlimited number of bracket-like text encapsulators known as tags. This aspect of XBN is based on the Standardized General Markup Language. Sarcasm, for example, can be indicated with tradition Sarcasm Brackets, or by encapsulating it between a <sarcasm> tag and a corresponding </sarcasm> tag. Attributes can be added to tags like so.
Example: <sarcasm strength=3>I have a cat.</sarcasm>
The beauty of XBN lies in its ability to modify text in any conceivable way.
Example: <voice type="Raleigh">What is the deal?</voice>
However, XBN is extremely bulky to both read and write, as you can see. It can be slickened slightly by using the abbreviated tags <s> and <em> for sarcasm and emphasis respectively. Actions are performed with a single <act> tag and its "do" property, as in
Example: <act do="head explodes">
However, most Consortiumists agree that tagly markedup text is for the most part, best left to HTML browsers. It has been suggested that an instant messaging program be programmed to recognize XBN tags and display the text in a user-configurable fashion, e.g. bold text for Emphasis Brackets, traditional Sarcasm Brackets for sarcasm, blue actions, and unrecognized tags (almost any tag is legal in XBN) in pink italics which popsup the actual tag on mouseover. This is certainly an intriguing proposal, but seems to have all the characteristics of AOLization. The very purpose of Bracket Notation is to enrich plain typed text as a more expressive medium, and not to require any special type of software to decipher it. Besides, I'm sure it wouldn't be long before XBN developed table and frame tags, with support for animated gifs. [shudder]
Meanwhile, the Consortium has already shown some signs of Disapproval for XBN by noting that "Extensible" does not, in fact, start with the letter 'X'.