[Bill Atkins] >> (Why are people from c.l.p calling parentheses "brackets"?)
[Kaz Kylheku] > Because that's what they are often called outside of the various > literate fields. For example, the English are "outside of the various literate fields"? FWIW, Python documentation consistently uses the jargon: () parentheses {} braces [] brackets That matches North American conventions, but occasionally confuses an international audience (for example, the English call parentheses "brackets" or "round brackets"). There's also a long tradition in both mathematics and computer science of using "bracket" as a generic term for any syntactic device used in pairs. For example, the "Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Algol 60" way back in 1963 even called "begin" and "end" brackets. If it's tempting to call the authors of that illiterate too, keep in mind that John McCarthy was one of them -- although I'm sure Peter Naur would be willing to take the blame for dumbing it down for Europeans ;-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list