The case of Brackets v. Parentheses

It was brought to my attention that in my last post I was wrong about the use of brackets, so let's have a little lesson, shall we?


Here's the paragraph in question:


"The drums went by my house. I didn't know about (the protest) until then, so we jumped up, hung up on the phone with my aunt, and jumped in,” said Elise Taft.


My argument (and one I considered to be relatively nitpicky) was that the use of parentheses was incorrect in this case, as brackets are usually used when you're changing a quote like this.

I've got a confession

Confession: I use "have got" in my creative writing.

Confession: in everyday speech, I probably say "gotta" more than anything else.

Confession: I just passed down the decision to stop editing "have got" from transcripts because people say it too damn much and I'm sick of changing it.

So go forth with the ability to sing "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" with the knowledge that while your grammar isn't technically correct, it's good enough.

Just please fix it in professional writing. It will still make you sound much more intelligent. I swear.