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?
I’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.
Thanks. 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).
I 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.
Comments
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?
I’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.
Thanks. 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).
I 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.
I think in this case it's probably best as is...reading the title as 'Lisp syntax' before English.