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

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

I frequently use an ellipse...that's THREE dots;no more, no less...


dave

Harry Davidson wrote:

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

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:43:12 GMT, Harry Davidson
wrote:

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


It is called an ellipsis.

I could cut and paste a definition but it would be more fun for you to
look it up.





Regards, Tom.
Thomas J. Watson-Cabinetmaker
Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania
http://users.snip.net/~tjwatson

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 20:16:48 -0400, Tom Watson
pixelated:

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:43:12 GMT, Harry Davidson
wrote:

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?

It is called an ellipsis.

Negative, sir. There are but 3 dots in an ellipsis.
Anything else is like those fid^H^H^Hdear friends who
include too many exclamation points in trying to make
one. Methinks the extra dots are where they went into
adult(?) ADD and started drooling on their keybords.


I could cut and paste a definition but it would be more fun for you to
look it up.

Ditto, eh?

-
The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.
------------
http://diversify.com Dynamic Websites, PHP Apps, MySQL databases

it means and so on, and so on (you fill in the blanks)

Yada yada....

"Morgans" wrote in message
...
it means and so on, and so on (you fill in the blanks)

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
...
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

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
.. .
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

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
. ..

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

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
. ..

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

I chalk it up as an adopted linguistic device for people to write the way
they talk. Nothing special about it.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:43:12 +0000, Harry Davidson wrote:

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

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 15:42:53 GMT, Ben Siders wrote:

I chalk it up as an adopted linguistic device for people to write the way
they talk. Nothing special about it.


Pretty much what I was going to say too.

Think of it as an emoticon for "trailing off the sentence", more so than a
traditional ellipsis would (and like adding exclaimation points or question
marks, the number of dots corresponds to the magnitude). I find myself
using it in places where I might finish a sentence with a gesture.

It also appears to be used to make a sentence quieter. Kind of like the
opposite of typing in all caps.

In an analytical stretch, you might say the poster was using the ellipses
to quiet his sentences to subversively point out JOAT's tendency of using
all caps.

david
--
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have
learned English -- up to 50 words used in correct context -- no human being
has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
-- Carl Sagan


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