Isn't that like saying, "a lake doesn't have to have any
water?"

Swingman wrote:

I was horribly misquoted ... what I said is that "... an ellipsis doesn't
have to omit anything". ;)

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Last update: 8/16/03

"George E. Cawthon" wrote in message
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.