If we add rp elements before and after the ruby text as in this example, when a user agent fails to recognize the ruby text it will now appear within parentheses, which is much more acceptable. User agents that do know how to handle ruby will automatically hide the contents of the rp elements as they display the ruby in the appropriate location.

We can use any character within the rp element. For example, Japanese uses different characters sometimes for parentheses.

Note that this fallback mechanism is not available for complex ruby.