[this] as a synonym for [this][]

[Mark Smith]

Faisal N. Jawdat wrote:

>On Apr 1, 2005, at 2:51 PM, Brian.Doherty at med.va.gov wrote:
>> I've done a lot of reading over the years, technical and non-technical
>> works.  In my experience, square brackets are pretty rare outside of 
>> code
>> blocks.
>
>It's used all the time when quoting other people's text (and inserting 
>comments, editing, etc.).

Yes, that is the unfortunate reality, but in the overwhelming majority of cases their use is inappropriate and/or unnecessary.

In the ideal world, the only situation that I can think of (that cannot be considered a counterpart of a link), where use of square brackets in prose is appropriate is as an abbreviated form of concentration:

        The concentration of Sodium Chloride was 10mM
        
        [NaCl] = 10mM
        
...and I'm not even sure that this is A1 correct, its just widespread and generally accepted.
        
I'll add my small voice to the group who are saying that potential confusion caused by the newer link style is an unimportant issue which already has a workaround in the old style. IOW, this can't really be considered broken, so it doesn't need fixing.

mark.