Brackets?!

Question

In most of the programming tutorials and coding challenge videos, I watch, they almost always call parenthesis 'brackets'.
Why is that?
Is it because it's shorter, easier to pronounce?
Have they always been called brackets?
I thought these were brackets: '[]'.
This is probably a stupid question but it's something that has confused me for the longest time.

Answer 1

() = round brackets
[] = square brackets
{} = curly brackets

It's one of those American English versus English type of things. I'm American and we call () parenthesis also, but they're also called round brackets in "real" English.

Answer 2

@Jakob Marley provided some good examples. 👍

For completeness, <> corresponds to angle brackets and curly brackets are known as braces too! 😉

Answer 3

@Jakob Marley Thank you!

Answer 4

@Zephyr Koo, Thanks! I've heard parenthesis called braces before but it's not as often.