[OS X TeX] Inline comment in LaTeX?

[Jung-Tsung Shen]

This is a general LaTeX question, rather than a specific OS X LaTeX question.

Is there a way to do an "inline comment" in LaTeX? Currently, the two
ways that I know of to do comments in LaTeX are: 1) using %; and 2)
using \begin{comment} with the verbatim package.

These two methods however do not meet some particular needs; for
example, in writing an article, when there are two words to choose and
I haven't decided which one, I'd rather to keep the two words
together, with one being commented, but without breaking the flow of
the writing. The following simple example illustrates my point:

"... thus, the method proposed here provides (* presents *) a unique
approach ..."

In Mathematica, (* and *) are used for inline comments.

Thanks in advance.

JT