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Kind of an unrelated question. But the phrase without the text inside the parentheses would be "How to write a Interpreter". Wouldn't "An" be a better choice?
by benbeltran 16y ago
Kind of an unrelated question. But the phrase without the text inside the parentheses would be "How to write a Interpreter". Wouldn't "An" be a better choice?
In this case, what is the best option? to be faithful to the original sentence, or to stick to what sounds best with the parentheses inserted?
- celoyd 16y agoI’d try to follow the rule that a sentence should always work without the parenthesis (counting the preceding space as part of the parenthesis). So I would do “an”. A similar problem comes up with capitalization in sentences beginning with a parenthesis. For example, in this: (Luckily) Some are already there. Capitalizing “Some” looks weird, even granted it’s a clumsy construction. But I think it’s probably best to do it that way.
- benbeltran 16y agoThanks. I also thought so myself, though it would look and maybe sound awkward with the parentheses, the original phrase should have precedence. PS. I just read my comment noticed I may have come off as a Grammar Nazi or something like that. It was an honest interest on the rules of composing sentences with parentheses (which I don't know myself).
- jacobolus 16y agoI don’t think there’s necessarily a hard-and-fast rule about this, and I find sentences sometimes read easier when a/an is set by the immediately following word inside parens, and sometimes when the choice is set by the word after the parens.
- dill_day 16y agoI think in this case it's probably best as is...reading the title as 'Lisp syntax' before English.