How to style Parentheses

I want to style Parentheses, aka 'Brackets', so that they sit on the centre of the text they enclose, and are not aligned with the top.

I can't use the <sup> thingy because that's used for other characters such as an asterisk. If I use <sup>, the other words or characters using this will be displaced.

I've tried using the <sub> thingy with a negative figure (to raise it towards the top) but this doesn't work.

Any suggestions?

To see my problem, visit this page on my blog; http://tepidair.blogspot.com/2010/04/green-dream-wet.html

William Leamy

Hello Thur

Thank you – again! This is just what I wanted.

You know, I've been to places such as A List Apart, Smashing Magazine, i Love Typography, the W3C Schools and to Jeffrey Zeldman but never found anything that seemed to do what I wanted.

And thank you for the link to Improve Your Web Typography.

William Leamy