We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Text present on the object that the editor judges a mistake.
Also known as: Curly brackets, Curly brackets in an inscription
Curly brackets around text that is genuinely there and should not be — a letter written twice, a word repeated across a line break. The editor prints it and simultaneously disowns it, which is more honest than quietly dropping it.
Braces enclosing letters or words that are physically present on the object but that the editor judges to be a scribal error and would exclude from the intended text.
Contexts: History
The commonest case is dittography — the same letters or word written twice, often where the writer resumed after a break — which the braces record rather than silently repair.
Printing the error rather than deleting it keeps the edition checkable. A reader who disagrees with the editor can see exactly what the object says.
Two curly brackets, each a curved vertical line with a point turned inward at its middle, enclosing a span of text.
Braces delete what the scribe wrongly included; angle brackets add what the scribe omitted.