After posting on here the other day, I thought to myself “I tend to use the Ellipsis quite a lot !”.

For those not familiar with the Ellipsis, it is a punctuation character comprising three evenly spaced dots (full stops). It is used to indicate words being removed from a sentence, and I think I tend to use it to indicate a sentence trailing off without finishing – i.e. that there's possibly a continuation of that idea, which I was probably considering at the time of writing and that the reader is welcome to continue with.

After the discussions we've had in the office lately concerning The Apostrophe, I thought maybe it was worth Googling to find out the correct way to use the Ellipsis.

Here's the page I found, and whilst I'm partially relieved that I've been using it fairly sensibly (if somewhat excessively), there's more to it than I thought.

If using an ellipsis to show that words have been removed from the end of a sentence, you're supposed to follow the ellipsis with a space then another full stop (totalling 4 dots). If using it to indicate a pause however, the last full stop may be omitted.

Just thought someone out there might be interested. In the meantime, I'll attempt to use it less often.

2004-02-12 : I stand corrected !
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