[css-grid][css-syntax] Usage of lone parentheses across CSS?

Hi,

I’ve been reviewing the CSS Grid specification yesterday, and I was left wondering whether using parentheses to denote line names was a very good idea. 

At first, I would like to start collecting more information about the reasons behind this choice, and the existing parenthesis usage in CSS, so I wondered whether there is any other location in CSS where parentheses are used in a non-functional way inside propery values. I couldn’t find one but it’s also totally possible something escaped my attention. If so, I would be happy to get some pointers.

The reason I’m asking for this is that while there isn’t any proposal out there yet, I can envision the usage of parenthesis as a good way of grouping various css tokens in a single semantic token so we may possibly find good usage for parenthezed blocks in the future, that may be prevented by its use in some isolated properties, which would be a bummer.

Given the area templates is defined using strings (grid-template-areas: “area-1 area-2...”) and used as identifiers (grid-area: area-1), I’m wondering about the opportunity to do the same thing for named lines (so, replacing ‘grid-template-rows: (line-name) size...;’ by ‘grid-template-rows: “line-name” size...;’).

Thoughts?
François