When an interviewer asked Nabokov how he ranked himself among great writers, Fahlman said, the writer replied, " I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile _ some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question ."
32.
Em dashes and en dashes, when used to set off parentheticals, are, along with parentheses ( round brackets ) and commas; the principal differences are parentheses are used to offset text of an optional or " aside " nature, commas are used to offset text that flows as an integral part of the sentence, and dashes are used to offset text in an emphasized manner.
