George E. Cawthon wrote:

Ah but it most certainly does in a quotation. ". . . is a
big . . . ." means that something was omitted before and
after is a big. Doesn't anyone use a dictionary (or a style
manual)? Consultation of Websters's which should be the
first step and indicates that the basic meaning is "to leave
out." The ellipse is 3 dots but some style require the
addition of the period when at the end of a sentence so it
appears to be 4 dots (using asterisks removes this problem
and is preferable to using dots anyway.

As long as I'm on a rant.............using all these dot
spacers is just a sloppy style of writing...........So,
there!

Bay Area Dave wrote:


as Swingman noted, an ellipsis doesn't indicate an omission, but in some
cases it is used that way also.

dave

Harry Davidson wrote:



Yes, but these recent things don't seem to be that. An ellipsis is
three dots (no more, no less) and is used to indicate an omission.
These have anything from two to ten dots and there doesn't seem to be
anything omitted. Weird.


On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 02:18:29 GMT, "J.B. Bobbitt"
wrote:




Use of the elipsis was made very popular quite a few years ago, by the likes
of Herb Caen and contemporary print journalists and columnists. There was
even a term coined for the style: "three dot journalism."


"Harry Davidson" wrote in message
m...



On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 18:56:29 -0400, Rod Upfold wrote:




haven't been online for abit......downloaded the new material that I
haven't read........


By the amount of newsreader submissions you have.....how do you find
time to do wood work......


just a question.......



Thanks


Rod


I'm not trying to start anything here or criticize in any way, but I'm
genuinely curious. More and more, I see people using a row of dots
(like the above) instead of just a single period at the end of
sentences. Why are they doing this? Does it serve some purpose I'm not
aware of?

Thanks for any enlightenment.

Harry


....haha! When I was in journalism school I started to use the ellipsis
quite a bit, thinking it made my copy more, ah, readable. You know,
flow: I was never berated by an instructor or professor, either,
getting great marks on my writing all the way through and into grad
studies. I kinda wore it out, finding it challenging to use classic
punctuation...however I still used it...for effect...and because, yup,
I'm lazy! cg