According to The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (and my own experience and teaching), I've found the following conventions are normally used:

• {} are braces (also called squiggly or curly brackets)
• [] are brackets (also called square brackets)
• () are parentheses (also called parens, round brackets, or bananas)

Of course, "braces vs brackets vs parentheses" are not immediately obvious to everyone, whereas "curly brackets vs square brackets vs round brackets" are. If you're not certain that your audience is going to use the same conventions as you, it's worth clarifying things first.

That reminds me, I've got a bunch of course notes I should be updating to do exactly that. ;)

Cheers,
Pedantic Paul

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