WHAT ARE PARENTHETICAL EXPRESSIONS?
The word or words that are inculcated in a sentence that keeps the meaning unchanged are known to be Parenthetical Expressions. Parenthetical Expressions extra and necessary information and details that might be necessary or might not be necessary. Even if we remove the Parenthetical Expression from the sentence, the meaning of the sentence will still be the same and it will remain unchanged.
TWO TYPES OF INFORMATION IN A SENTENCE
Important: The college taking money for the fees asked for the admission form.
Not so important: The woman, hoping to save money, did not buy her favourite dress.
Usually, the not-so-important information is separated from the real or the original sentence with the help of commas or any other type of punctuation. It is in three ways of punctuation that we can distinguish the Parenthetical Expressions out of which some of them are being ‘commas’, ’round brackets’, and ‘long dashes’.
The usual and the regular form of punctuation for parenthetic expression is commas and if one sentence consists of two parenthetical expressions, then they will be separated by two commas wherein the first one will come prior and the following one will come after.
The most common type of punctuation coming at the second position for parenthetic expressions are the brackets and they can only come in the middle of a sentence.
The dashes are the least common form of punctuation coming in this. If the parenthesis is in between the sentence, then there must be two dashes, one in the front and another at the back.
PARENTHETICAL EXPRESSION EXAMPLES
- Harvey, although he comes from modern society, is very down to earth.
- Meera, however, decided to come along.
- He was not on time, therefore, he couldn’t make up for the tour.
- Some drinks, caffeine for example, is not good for the human body.
If you notice in the above-given examples, the parenthetic is in between the sentence and there are opening as well as closing punctuation marks. The use of a single comma or single dash can be done if the parenthetic is in the starting or at the end of a sentence. We cannot make use of a single bracket.
Parenthetical expressions’ information can be easily added, and they can be removed too. The grammar of the main sentence or the meaning of the sentence will remain un-destroyed if we remove the Expression from the sentence.
Quiz of Parenthetical Expressions
