Welcome to Raya’s Dungeon
Chamber 01 – Part 1
Raya’s Pleasure Palace of Perfect Punctuation
Portraying
Positioning Pathetic Parenthetical Phrases Properly
 Two pathetic participles waiting to dangle. Ever see a naked parenthesis? A dangling participle? A traumatized comma? All of these shocking items will be exposed in….RAYA’S DUNGEON GEON geon Okay, cheesie – but it got your attention…otherwise most people won’t come within ten feet of grammar and punctuation guidelines….AHAH! caught you yawning already! I am only gonna deal with one item today…one that I see a lot of writers having trouble with…mostly because I think some of you don’t understand some of the principles behind grammar and/or punctuation. (Or maybe your English teacher was a witch who gave broomsticks a bad name.) PATHETIC PARENTHETICAL PHRASES  The branches of a lone Joshua tree enclosing and separating a part of the moody sky from the rest of the prairie wilderness. Everyone knows what parentheses are ( ) – those are parentheses. They are used to enclose and separate, modify without being obtrusive, keep the flow and provide additional information; oh, and yeah, to make smiley faces. There are also other means of creating parenthetical phrases: It is almost like coding. If you start a parenthetical phrase with one of its codes, you must end it with that same code. Thus, if you are wise, you will remember to open and close your parenthetical phrase. The codes, in this case, are either the parentheses ( ), the em dash or double dash (–), the ellipse (…), and the comma (,). What is a parenthetical phrase? And why should I care? Basically a parenthetical phrase is a modifier…a phrase that increases understanding of whatever it is referring to. How do you know it’s a parenthetical phrase? Because, if you take it away from the sentence, the sentence will still stand on its own. And you should care because I said so and will toss you into the deepest…er…because a parenthetical phrase enriches your writing and is a tool to help you create your own unique style. Polly, wanting a cracker, started to sing. The parenthetical phrase there (in italics) could be removed and the sentence, although not as rich as with the parenthetical phrase, would still stand alone. You can see that you could substitute any of the other parenthetical signifiers.  "No more singing. Gimme the damn cracker." Polly (wanting a cracker) started to sing. Doesn’t look as good though. Using parentheses for parenthetical phrases makes it seem like you don’t really want to come right out and say it. It gives the appearance of being shy…and sometimes disorganized. Which is good, if that is the energy you want to portray, right? Polly–wanting a cracker–started to sing. Yeah, it works, but I still prefer commas. This style is a little more abrupt and intrusive. Polly…wanting a cracker…started to sing. Sounds like a James T. Kirk speech, but it works, better than the other two anyhow, and almost as good as the commas. Shows more hesitancy or pauses before and after the parenthetical phrase. Which style of parenthetical phrase you use depends on the mood you are trying to convey in your writing. Keep in mind that, whichever set of parenthetical signifiers you use, you don’t have to use any others at that point, i.e. you don’t need to use parentheses AND commas…one set of signifiers will be enough. Otherwise you are mixing your code up. I urge writers to start experimenting. One of the things you are gonna work up is your own unique style. I mostly use commas and ellipses (…) – and that is part of my style. A crisper style might use commas or the double dash (–), and the more scientific style might use the parentheses ( ). Experiment and see which suits you and which suits the mood of the piece you are writing. |
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