Since you are really confused let's try:
1. type in the commands exactly as given below- to type a command use lowercase, press the ENTER key at the end of the line - note: the words in uppercase HAVE to be uppercase. The $ is required in front of $SHELL.
Code:
echo $SHELL
which man
2. Next, copy the results (or transcribe them) and post them here so we can see the results.
and with regard () all by itself like that - it is two characters: open paren ( and close paren ). As you wrote it, for most shells (what the $SHELL thing shows) ( ) does nothing. Those characters are shift-9 and shift-0 on most keyboards.
