If a clause is sandwiched between two commas then is this parenthesis? For example, in the Shakespeare play "Much Ado About Nothing" a character says: 'Why, how now, Count'. Are the words 'how now' in parenthesis?
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Anonymous
ANSWERS: 3
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parentheses are these ( ). What you have are , , which are commas.
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im aware of that, but is there a technial term for words which are sandwiched between commas?
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When quoting Shakespeare, remeber that the only punctuation Shakespeare used was the full stop. Any other punctuation has been inserted later. Techically, Singwell is correct: parentheses are brackets (). In speech, one may term a phrase parenthetic if you feel that it would deserve parentheses if written. One crucial conditions for a phrase to be parenthetic is that it could be removed without changing the meaning. Thus, in the phrase "The count, who I despise, approaches", the phrase "who I despise" could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence, which is "The count approaches". Indeed, a modern writer might regarde parentheses as better puncuation in this case. In your example, however, the phrase is not parenthetic: the meaning of the sentence is not "Why, count" but "How now, count": the commas are two unrelated pauses.
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