That's interesting. Wiktionary says that brackets are () in the UK but [] in the US, and that other brackets are called different things to disambiguate them.

Using "brackets" for parentheses certainly sounds odd to me even though I never learned "PEMDAS."

In the UK:

() are brackets

[] are square brackets

{} are curly brackets

<> are angle brackets

in school I don't think I ever heard the word "parentheses" used to refer to (), or at all for that matter.

That chimes with my experience in the UK.

I personally call ( ) "round brackets" to try and be a bit more explicit about which kind of bracket I mean, but I don't think that's a very common turn of phrase. Similarly I've picked up calling { } "brace brackets" from programming.

I heard it (in UK) referring to { }.

In programming circles I've come to expect: () parens, [] brackets, {} braces. Probably easier if we all try to stick to that.

Yes, as someone who lives in the UK I call () parenthesis, [] square brackets and {} curly braces to make it (somewhat) clearer. I pronounce root and route differently for the same reason. But I'm a foreigner so I can take some liberties :)

This also in the US, and < > as elbow brackets.

> in school I don't think I ever heard the word "parentheses" used to refer to (), or at all for that matter.

Only in maths or ever?

The word parentheses is very rarely used in Britain.

(Brackets), [square brackets], {curly brackets or braces} and <angle brackets> are the terms used in all fields, maths and normal life included.

From my kids' school maths I know this rather as BIDMAS - with the 'I' standing for indices (i.e. powers), which makes more sense, no?

For my own part, I don't remember any fancy acronyms being rolled out to help us remember this stuff when I were a lad. Kids today grumble grumble etc.

IIRC it was changed in the curriculum at some point, since we had both BODMAS and later BIDMAS. I imagine it was done for the reason you gave, it does make more sense

When I was in school, we only used apostrophe, comma, open and close paren, exclamation point, question mark, dollar sign, and period. Maybe a percent sign in later years. Of course my exposure to computers in those days was watching TV when the announcer took a stack of (punch) cards from a card sorter and called it a computer (UNIVAC IIRC).

BEDMAS in Toronto Canada in the early 2000s.

I remember it as “Bless My Dear Aunt Sally”.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally in my classes. Fascinating!