# Spacing around brackets in slanted or italics

From time to time I use brackets as an equivalent of respectively, like in the following sentence:

A semigroup [monoid, group] $S$ is commutative if, for all $x, y \in S$, $xy = yx$.


Now, I would like to be able to write the same sentence in italics or slanted, while keeping the brackets in roman (or in math mode). I tried something like

\textit{$[$test$]$}


but it does not produce a nice result, because the second bracket is to close from the words in italics. Next I tried

\begin{proposition}
Let $M$ be a semigroup $[$monoid, group$\\,]$...
\end{proposition}


which produces a better result, but is still far from being optimal.

So, is there a way to get the appropriate spacing around the brackets?

• You might be interested in @cgnieder's package embrac, which (semi-)automatically handles upright parenthesis in italic text and therefore redefines \textit and \emph. – Henri Menke Oct 6 '13 at 11:38

The brackets are textual punctuation not math symbols so $[$ is not what you want, I think you want \textup{[} The \text... commands should automatically handle insertion of italic correction space when switching between slanted and upright styles.