0
Victo Posted 13 years ago
Grammar
Enclosure of 2 Sentences Within Parens
If we enclose two sentences within parentheses, do we lowercase the first word (in this case ‘someone’)?
The policeman knocked on the door awhile (someone had started playing the bongos. How the policemen thought anyone could hear the knocking I don't know) and then banged on it with their nightsticks.
Thank you.
The policeman knocked on the door awhile (someone had started playing the bongos. How the policemen thought anyone could hear the knocking I don't know) and then banged on it with their nightsticks.
Thank you.
Top answer
Just do what seems best to you. You can go on to riff on all sorts of oddities. eg How about starting a new paragraph inside the parentheses?
- Just do what seems best to you.
- You can go on to riff on all sorts of oddities.
- eg How about starting a new paragraph inside the parentheses?
- Clive
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
7 Answers
0
If you add that kind of stuff in parentheses, you are not really writing standard English, so you are forsaking strict rules.Just do what seems best to you.
You can go on to riff on all sorts of oddities. eg How about starting a new paragraph inside the parentheses?
You can go on to riff on all sorts of oddities. eg How about starting a new paragraph inside the parentheses?
00
0
Or we could use a semicolon instead and drop the cap in the second sentence, correct? See below.
The policeman knocked on the door awhile (someone had started playing the bongos; how the policemen thought anyone could hear the knocking I don't know) and then banged on it with their nightsticks.
The policeman knocked on the door awhile (someone had started playing the bongos; how the policemen thought anyone could hear the knocking I don't know) and then banged on it with their nightsticks.
00
It is usual not to treat an independent clause in parentheses within a sentence as a sentence itself, but you can. When you have two or more, however, you have no choice. Treat them as you would any other sentence. Chicago says not to put two sentences inside like that in the first place, and then provides an example where they do just that and treat them as I said.
The
The
00
I don't own that book and never actually heard of it. My friend passed that sentence on to me, and I questioned it. She never informed me that it came from the book you mentioned. If the book is dated from the 1950s, it's obviously a tad antiquated.
00
0
No apology necessary. I submitted that sentence only because the punctuation looked bizarre, and I wanted a second opinion.
0
Related Questions