Brackets {

Question

Does anyone know the formal name of the bracket "{" ? When should such a bracket be used?

Konstantin · Accepted Answer

Hi there!
Although I live in Germany, I know for a fact that they call it "brace". At least in programming languages. As for when you should use such a bracket

here is an example:

if ( a == true )
{
b = 10;
}
// smile

Rommie · Answer

Technically, your question cannot be answered, because characters do not have "formal names" in English. There are only commonly used names.

However, the Unicode character U+007B '{' does have two formal names in Unicode. These are:

LEFT CURLY BRACKET
OPENING CURLY BRACKET

Of these, OPENING CURLY BRACKET is preferred, because, when rendered in right-to-left text it looks like this: '}'

Rommie

I forgot to answer "When should such a bracket be used?". Basically, never. It does not normally occur in English punctuation. It is a specialized character used in mathematics, computer programming, music, and many other disciplines, but you are not very likely to find it in prose.

Rommie

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