1247: Parenthetical (Nonrestrictive) Clauses

Whats the difference between:

"The man, who I met earlier, is funny...

The man—who I met earlier—is funny...

The man (who I met earlier) is funny" ?

In effect: nothing really. All of these have examples of a nonrestrictive clause, meaning that it is modifying clause nonessential to the rest. The difference is that commas are used to separate many types of clauses, including generally main clauses from subordinate clauses. However, m-dashes also are used for this, though more specifically for parenthetical clauses when the information can be thought to interrupt the rest of the speech, and moreover, parentheses are used for—obviously—parenthetical clauses. Since the sentence cannot be rearranged to be "the man is funny who I met earlier" because that sounds odd, so the parentheses aren't as jarringly parenthetical as they could be, but there is some overlap in usages. There will, however, be editorial preferences when writing.

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