Ron wrote on Thu, 10 May 2007 15:16:37 -0400:

?? (General) works great.
??
?? I'm just wondering why (#) would be programed to be a
?? "negative" number.

Another use of parentheses, especially in scientific data, is to
indicate the standard deviation, or sometimes probable error of
a number, eg. 10.5(2) would indicate an error of 2 in the last
quoted figure. I don't need the notation much these days but I
did manage rather clumsily to generate a text value by use of a
helper column in days gone by.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not