｢ ｣ are quotation marks used in East Asian languages, though they have been repurposed for other contexts (see below). In English, typographers mostly prefer not to set brackets in italics, even when the enclosed text is italic. However, in other languages like German, if brackets enclose text in italics, they are usually also set in italics. Uses in writing Parentheses (singular, parenthesis ) (also called simply brackets, or round brackets, curves, curved brackets, oval brackets, stalls or, colloquially, parens ) contain material that serves to clarify (in the manner of a gloss) or is aside from the main point. A milder effect may be obtained by using a pair of commas as the delimiter, though if the sentence contains commas for other purposes, visual confusion may result. T