I used to be addicted to brackets. They were my way of throwing in little asides (like this) without interrupting the flow of the sentence.
But I have stowed by stash of brackets at the back of my writer’s tool box and taken up with the – far superior – dash.
I am not sure why this change has occurred – just as I am not sure really how to use a dash correctly. But now I know – and love – the dash.
The thing is my use of dashes is accelerating and soon everything I write will be – like – this – and – not make any – if at all – sense.
Jen S. Wight 
You can have my parentheses when you pry them from around my cold (dead) heands.And — hey, aren’t those actually hyphens you’re using?
shoot, now you are just confusing me more.Someone told me there are actually three types of horizontal lines used in punctuation. I really should know this stuff.
what drives me a little nutty is when people open brackets, write something and then FORGET THEY OPENED THE BRACKETS SO YOU NEVER GET THE )… Happens in the Guardian fairly regularly…Bill, to me:”my only point would be that you seem unable to tell the difference between a hyphen and a dash”…