Ellipses, a la Shmoop.
Sometimes, when we’re thinking about something really deep or difficult, like nuclear physics
or world hunger or the final episode of The Sopranos…
…our minds just need a break.
A time-out.
A brief pause.
And how do we signal that the brain train has jumped the tracks, if only for a few moments?
With an ellipsis <>…
…otherwise known as… dot dot dot.
The ellipsis serves two purposes.
It can indicate that a writer has hit the “Pause” button on his or her thought process…
…or an ellipsis may mean that words have been omitted from a piece of text.
Before we dive into the Sea of Examples, however, let’s look at the formatting rules for this
particular punctuation mark.
We can’t just throw dots on a page and call the result an ellipsis.
Nope.
That’d be like Julia Child tossing stiffly beaten egg whites into a bowl and calling
them a soufflé.
An ellipsis, to be an ellipsis, must possess the following: Three dots.
Not two.
Not four.
Three.
There must be a space between each dot and a space before and after the ellipsis.
So, when we type an ellipsis, what we’re really typing is…
…space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space.
Also, make sure that the ellipsis, when typed out, stays on one line and doesn’t spread
to two.
Now, how does this punctuation mark work when we’re using it to omit words?
Say the high school football coach provided one hundred words to the school newspaper
about Friday night’s disaster of a game.
We have to chisel Coach’s one-hundred-word ramble down to a usable quote.
This is where the ellipsis comes in handy…
“Well, the truth is space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space we didn’t completely suck, although we kind
of did.”
See?
One hundred words cut down to thirteen.
That’s the power of the ellipsis.
Or what if our English teacher wants to read aloud a five-hundred page essay on why Twilight
is the worst book ever written?
Can’t we trim that down a little?
“Twilight is space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space God-awful space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space
and should be burned.”
Once again, the ellipsis does amazing things.
We went from tens of thousands of words to eight.
If the section of text we want to omit follows a complete sentence, we plunk down a period
at the end of the sentence…
…and then follow it with space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space.
Yes, there are four dots in a row.
No, this is not a four-dot ellipsis.
It’s just a period, followed by an ellipsis, and there happen to be four dots total.
If the section of text we want to omit ends with a terminal punctuation mark, like an
exclamation point or a period or a question mark, we do the following…
…space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space-terminal punctuation mark.
For example, if we have the sentence, “Did Billy Bob take the train from Topeka that
arrived late?”…
…and we want to snip out the words “that arrived late”…
…our sentence would then read, “Did Billy Bob take the train from Topeka space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space-question
mark.”
Finally, there’s one enormous caveat to be aware of when it comes to using the omission
ellipsis…
…be careful what gets cut.
Trimming away unnecessary words to shorten a quote is one thing…
…and trimming away words that change the meaning of the quote altogether is another.
Down that path lies trouble and possible legal action.
As mentioned earlier, the ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in a train of
thought.
Maybe the writer wants to show that time has passed.
“Wayne thought about going for a run space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space but, five hours later, he was still on the
sofa, watching Honey Boo-Boo.”
Maybe the writer wants to show that a list is unfinished.
“Leslie contemplated the ingredients she needed for the cake: flour, sugar, chocolate,
space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space” Or perhaps the writer has simply run out of
dialogue.
“Dude,” Jack said, “it’s like, you know, space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space”
“Yeah, man,” Bill replied.
“Yeah, I feel you space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space” While it’s grammatically correct to use
an ellipsis to show a break in a train of thought, many readers find the practice annoying…
…like, really, really, really annoying.
So, keep the mental break ellipses to a minimum.
And that’s it for the dot dot dot.
Not only does it help us shorten sentences…
…but it can indicate when we’ve contemplated enough pre-calc for one day space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space