Where does "Your blog does not currently have any published posts." come from?

On a page in my site, a strange sentence appears within the first bullet item because I had [archives] in the HTML code.
Here is how the text appears on the page (it does not include the information that these are archives but adds the sentence about no posts):

• Documentation Consultants & Contractors

Your blog does not currently have any published posts.

• Jobs Board
• Resumes Board

Here is what the code looked like:

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.stcwdc.org/doc_company_resources.shtml">Documentation Consultants & Contractors</a>[archives]</li>

<li><a href="https://jobs.stcwdc.org/jobs/">Jobs Board</a></li>

<li><a href="https://jobs.stcwdc.org/resumes/">Resumes Board</a></li>

If I change [archives] to (archives), the text shows correctly.

• Documentation Consultants & Contractors (archives)
• Jobs Board
• Resumes Board

Why do the square brackets bring in spurious sentences? I use them for editor’s comments throughout the site and I just noticed this strange behavior.