Stop defacing quotes with brackets • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#191

Post by ddingus » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

zeroimpl wrote: post #189

ddingus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes down to what brackets mean, and the reader understanding what is quoted. In your second example, the quote is clear, verbatim as quotes are intended to be. In the first example, what has been clear, precise syntax is not a matter of ambiguity. In your example, it's somewhat clear, but inference is required to understand what was said. The example given in the article actually does bring genuine ambiguity to…

Whenever I see “go home and bite [his] pillow”, I’ve always assumed the person spoke quickly and/or skipped a word, which the editor thought should be added. It never occurred to me before now that the editor actually replaced a word!

Right? Prior to this discussion, my thought was similar, typo, or something benign.

Replacing a word breaks the syntax and brings ambiguity to some use cases involving brackets and quotes that did not have it before.

As I mentioned elsewhere, a similar thing happened with the one space vs. two spaces to end a sentence.

In that last sentence, there is now ambiguity after "vs. " where there was not before. Right now I am on desktop, but if I were to input that sentence on my Android, "two" would be auto-capitalized, even though I am mid sentence.

I see this headed a similar direction.

Cases where the actual verbatim expression may be made more clear with something added in brackets will now overlap with cases where someone wants to replace a word in a quote...

Sigh :(

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#192

Post by thedufer » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #136

thedufer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is addressed in the following section: > Sometimes you have to use brackets anyway. Maybe the speaker or writer was using an acronym or a completely unfamiliar piece of jargon that the reader needs explained. Maybe they were referring to a person by their last name or nickname, when the reader has not yet been introduced to the person’s full name. But these changes should be both necessary and obvious. N…

Bracketing acronym's on first use is a totally separate issue.

I was more pointing towards the second half about expanding a nickname or last name into a full name, but I think they're actually closely related as different ways in which the author might be adding context that is missing from the quote.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#193

Post by gugagore » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 3:49 AM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #173

gugagore wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it happens often in natural communication, I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform) appears before its ante cedent. So resolving the pronoun with square brackets can be less confusing, to say nothing of the benefits of brevity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphora

> I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform) appears before its antecedent. It depends on the native language. Spanish is flexible to a fault, so "a huge orange cat", "an orange huge cat", and even "a cat orange huge" are easy to understand... but correctly translating "un enorme gato naranja" to English is the hard part.

You're talking about ordering among adjectives, which is unrelated to pronouns.

> The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase by Mark Forsyth. "Adjectives absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac."

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#194

Post by gugagore » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 4:02 AM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #183

gugagore wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say we only do something like that in programming if there's a benefit to using other values for `it` in other contexts, and if we'd like to refer to a template `"It is not worth doing" by name. If you're just going to use it once, or if all usages have `[it=foobar]`, I don't think you'd do it. I could imagine doing something like what you mention if I had moved code from another context, and I wanted to have a c…

> If you're just going to use it once, or if all usages have `[it=foobar]`, I don't think you'd do it. If you never pulled out code into its own separate function just in order to name some lines of code, you should give it a try. You can avoid a lot of comments and/or confusion by just structuring your code in a way that allows you to name lines of code as concepts and abstractions. No need for it to happen more tha…

I agree with using descriptive identifier names and using function names to express intent of lines of code.

But I don't understand your point in bringing it up here.

> "It is not worth doing," she said, [it=foobar]

  baz(it) = "$it is not worth doing"
  baz("foobar")

`it` is neither a descriptive identifier, nor did I see a suggestion for what the function `baz` could be called to make it descriptive.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#195

Post by jancsika » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 5:43 AM UTC

wool_gather wrote: post #154

jancsika wrote: post #144

Somehow this makes me think of a story about the Bush-era euphemism for torture: "extended interrogation techniques." Everyone on Fox news taught themselves to use this euphemism in smooth, everyday punditry. It spread very quickly. Later, perhaps around the mid 2000s or so, there was some additional talking point added about some prominent Democrat's support for torture after 9/11. Could have been Hilary in a Senate…

It doesn't really affect your point, but the term was "enhanced", not "extended". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniq...

Ah, thanks.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#196

Post by anon98356 » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 11:37 AM UTC

ghusbands wrote: post #178

anon98356 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the standard syntax? I've always been led to believe square brackets are used to insert words that don't exist in the quote. > "go home and bite my [his] pillow." To me makes way more sense. If I was to read "go home and bite [his] pillow." I would assume the person being quoted had said ""go home and bite pillow." which makes almost no sense.

Yes, it is standard. Search the thread for MLA or manual. Academic papers are done this way and have been for a long time, and it's not hard to understand.

MLA is a standard, not the only standard. Just becase a significant portion of universities/academic instituitions have adopted it as their standard doesn't make it the worldwide standard at all. It doesn't even make it the standard for all academia.

Further Esquire is not an acadmic journal so should probably conform to a more widerly used understanding of how quotes are recorded/put in context.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#197

Post by hnarn » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #18

leipert wrote: post #6

> I have been told that this bracketing fetish may come from academia, where formal rules of writing are a kind of hazing and where sounding faintly like a space alien could be mistaken for rigor. The academics are also wrong to do it. Presumably they believe it’s OK to vivisect quotations because the reader can always go to their footnotes and look up the original text to see what it actually says. I disagree. The b…

I'm a former lawyer, and brackets are critical in legal writing. If you are quoting a court case or a brief, you need to be crystal clear about which precise words existed in the source and which ones you added in to make verbs/nouns match up. This is probably also somewhat important in other parts of academia, where precise use of words is important. But it is critical in the legal field.

Did you read the article? Because it’s not arguing this. Quite the opposite (the need to be clear about what was originally a part of the quote).

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#198

Post by hnarn » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

I agree wholeheartedly for the simple reason that the example in the article is destructive. It doesn’t only alter the quote, it reduces it. In my mind brackets, or sometimes parentheses, should only be used to add information to assist the reader. To remove a word and replace it with another within brackets is in my mind fundamentally and thoroughly wrong.

Personally I use “(…)” to signify cuts, or “[word]” to include a word missing in the quote, but is necessary to avoid the language being annoying to read. I would never dream of changing words in a quote to fit my own text.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#199

Post by hnarn » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #134

Digit-Al wrote: post #15

I've always hated those brackets. I never know why they've bracketed the word and what it's supposed to mean. At least now I know it's purpose, but it's still confusing. I absolutely agree with the author's points.

Well now you know: It is to provide clarification, particularly with pronouns that have less context when one part of a quote is lifted into another conversation/article.

Doesn’t help to know why it’s done if you think it’s wrong. Brackets are already used for non-destructive purposes and this example is destructive.

Re: Stop defacing quotes with brackets

#200

Post by hnarn » Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #16

Pretty ironic to ascribe purely speculative emotions ("afraid") in the same breath as lambasting others for imprecision in ascribing words. Brackets are necessary to clarify context in a concise way. I doubt I'd use them in the contexts the OP means, but they are invaluable in legal writing. ---- "[Brackets for editorial insertions] are invaluable in legal writing." -torstenvl

Your example is not what the article is talking about, because it doesn’t change words in the middle of the quote. An example would be:

> “[It’s] invaluable in [legalese]” —torstenvl

The first part is a shortening/paraphrasing and clearly marked as such. But you didn’t use the word legalese, but I put it in there because I like it better. And that’s wrong.

Although personally I would write something outside of the quotes to ease the reader into your direct quote, possibly using brackets or parentheses to signify cuts.