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Comment by acangiano | Hacker News Reader

In Italian, we qualify them by their shape:

    () == parentesi tonde (round)
    [] == parentesi quadre (squared)
    {} == parentesi graffe (claws)

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In British English it's much the same:

  () == "round brackets" or usually just "brackets"
  [] == "square brackets"
  {} == "curly brackets" or "braces"

I grew up in India and am familiar with this, used to always wonder if I was wrong and why i often get confused when people say parentheses instead of brackets.(I have been in the US since the last 10 years)

In England I learned the version further up this thread. Computer Science nomenclature doesn't really follow British vs. American English separations as much as natural language.

In fact I don't recall anyone in Britain use those terms to me, either in university or at work.

Interesting, I'm from the US and I do call () parenthesis but the last two are the same from what I've learned and what other people say (usually in math classes).

In New Zealand:

  () == "round brackets"
  [] == "square brackets"
  {} == "curly brackets"
  <> == "pointy brackets"

That's how I learned it (although I never used 'round brackets' explicitly). This gets really confusing when you begin to talk to Americans and refer to 'brackets', thankfully everybody understands parens, and the others are the same.

> {} == parentesi graffe (claws)

I initially read that as "parentesi giraffe" which could have been plausible...

,-{ __ }-,

in French, they are (plural form):

    ( parenthèses )
    [ crochets ]    => "hooks"
    { accolades }   => "hugs"

Some computer scientists split the word in two to distinguish the opening one from the closing one (like Physicist do with the bra-ket notation).

( a b c ) is then pronounced "Paren, a, b, c, thèse".

Yes but in Physics the bra & ket vector notatin (kind of) mis-uses '<' & '>' to denote vectors as in <Ψ|H|Ψ> = E, for example (and if my memory servers right…)

I've never heard the "split parenthesis" - perhaps Quebec is different.

I have a Lisp teacher in Japan who has an interesting way of reading code. He says 'kakko' for '(', which is the usual Japanese word for a parenthesis. For the closing one, he says the word in reverse: 'kokka'. So "(def a (fn))" would be read "kakko def a kakko fn kokka kokka". It's quite effective.

In Mexico:

    () == Paréntesis
    [] == Corchetes
    {} == Llaves (keys)

In Romanian:

  () == paranteze (rotunde); the "rotunde" (round) adjective is optional  
  [] == paranteze pătrate (squared)  
  {} == acolade (braces)

In Swedish:

  () == Paranteser (Parentheses)  
  [] == Hakparanteser (Hook parentheses)  
  {} == Måsvingar (Gull wings)
        Klammerparanteser (Brace parentheses)
        Krullparenteser (Curl parentheses)
        Spetsparanteser (Tip parentheses)
        Ackolader (Swedification of the French accolades => Hugs)

Swedish uses left, right or more commonly amongst developers start and end prefixes. Måsvingar seem to be winning as the word of choice for braces amongst developers.

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