That Poor Ellipsis

I sometimes frequent forums where, believe it or not, some of the people who post aren’t exactly grammar experts. I normally don’t have a problem with this, but lately there seems to be a trend of serious elliptical abuse.

For instance:

This shows how mean spirited that woman is .. I Hope CBS CANCELLED GL… She have no respect for any of the Gush /RPG fans..

THANKS . ..EW for RIPPing my HEART..again.. She finally went for the jugular…. This sadden me..

Tell me how stupid this is.. DUH!! I hope GL fall from grace.. I Wouldn’t watch this finally garbage ….If PGP offer me a million dollars..”

Again it’s not the spelling that bothers me (and this is obviously a North American, because they watch my soap) it’s the overuse of those poor ellipses. And this isn’t the only person I’ve seen go crazy like this. I saw another in a forum to which I won’t link. Every time I read something like this I get breathless, because I read it like it’s supposed to be- and not like it’s the end of a sentence (though this particular person doesn’t use it as such).

To the people using ellipsis in such a way, I beg you to stop! Please. Pretty please.

In case you don’t know, the proper use of an ellipsis is this:

Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from Greek ἔλλειψις ‘omission’) in printing and writing refers to the row of three full stops (… or . . . ) or asterisks (***) indicating an intentional omission. This punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot. An ellipsis is sometimes used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence .

The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it. An example of this ambiguity is ‘She went to…school.’ In this sentence, ‘…’ might represent the word ‘elementary’, or the word ‘no’. Omission of part of a quoted sentence without indication by an ellipsis (or bracketed text) (i.e., ‘She went to school.’ as opposed to ‘She went to Broadmoor Elementary school.’) is considered misleading. An ellipsis at the end of the sentence which ends with a period (or such a period followed by an ellipsis), appears, therefore, as four dots.

If you know someone who engages in elliptical misuse, gently guide them to the proper method. And let them know that really, really long paragraphs full of ellipses can cause someone to lose too much oxygen. Also, exclamation points are free and easy- try those. Please consider using some of those. Or better yet, a single period. Those are always nice when placed properly.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sphere: Related Content

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.