3 Dots

[reiver33]

Via another website I came across a YouTube rant, an on-screen critique of 'the worst story ever written'. I didn't have the time to sit through it all, but one thing I picked up was concerning the use of three dots (...) in a sentence.

According to the critic, this device should only be used to signify a line of dialogue being cut off unexpectedly. NOT to represent a tailing off and NOT to represent a pause in conversation. Unfortunately I didn't find out what he did consider to be the appropriate punctuation.

Anyone?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I can't suggest an alternative, simply because he is wrong.

 

[Pyan]

Yep, I agree with Teresa. Your quoted critic seems to be unaware of the formal use of the ellipsis (...) which is to indicate words missed out of a quotation:

Via another website I came across a YouTube rant.... I didn't have the time to sit through it all, but one thing I picked up was concerning the use of three dots (...) in a sentence.

But the ellipsis can also be used

to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence

The Ellipsis - Wiki

Or, you could just look back through my posts... I use it far too much in informal writing, such as here, but it always seems to me to give the impression of how I'd be saying something rather than writing it. Know what I mean...?

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Ellipses, as they're known, are not only to be used for cut off dialogue-which I find a hyphen to do a better job with anyway-but also for what he said it was not meant to be used for.


TE is right about it.

 

[J Riff]

I use them endlessly, then go back and fill them in or leave them out.

 

[Anne Martin]

I've learned that their effectiveness decreases proportionally by the frequency you use them – same for dashes, although I have a nasty habit of over-using those.

Maybe ...

 

[Hex]

Nice example of how questionable information from the internet can be. Anyone can do a YouTube rant, even when they don't know what they're talking about.

Like someone said above, a hyphen normally represents an unexpected cut off, and ellipses are a trailing off into uncertainty or whatever...

It makes me wonder what it's like to be the YouTube guy reading something. He must think lots of authors write really strange dialogue.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Pyan is right.

As far as I know, the proper function of ellipses is to indicate an omission from a quote.

But they work for other things as well, although they're irritating if overdone ...

 

[Pyan]

Oh, I don't know...

 

[Ursa major]

I expect that ellipses are most frequently used in periodicals....










(Which is an example of one of their uses on this site: to indicate a pun. )

 

[RJM Corbet]

This abuse must be stopped ...

 

[The Judge]

My usually trusty dictionary is silent on this in its punctuation section and just gives the standard definition of an ellipsis as

the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues

and

a set of dots (...) indicating such an omission

but my opinion is the same as everyone else's. Ellipses for a tailing off, and a long dash for broken off/interrupted. (To me, that's what they look like, somehow.)

And while I'm here, this isn't really a workshoppy matter so I'll shift it over to GWD.

 

[WizardofOwls]

I use the 3 dots in conversations when there is so much more that I would like to say but I feel like I need to stop rather than bore the reader to tears...

 

[MstrTal]

Edit: Oops re-read your post and now realize my entire post was out of context. One should not post half asleep and with a migraine. Please disregard.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Personally, I think that with many such things, as language evolves stylistically then so called 'rules' can be bent, if not broken. Personally, I use them to indicate a pause as someone searches for the right word, whether in dailogue or narrative. However, that is simply a style thing. For example:

Dialogue

'I was led to believe he was most...aggressive in his response.'
'If you call severing the head and playing with it aggressive,' Bell replied. 'I call it psychotic.'

Or in narrative:

Hadn't she made what she thought were the right decisions? Hadn't she always tried to be good? She looked down at the meat that had once been a living, breathing person, and felt...not guilt, exactly, but something else, something she didn't like, for she had never felt it before. Sadness, perhaps.

Though purists may argue against the above, but to me it works linguistically. Each to their own.

One might also argue that Stephen King's use of brackets
(such as this)
might also be 'wrong'.

It didn't seem to bother the few people who have read his books, though. Critics are called critics because they criticise, not because they think critically.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Critics are called critics because they criticise, not because they think critically.

Most excellent -- must remember that!

 

[Pyan]

I rather like the other saying, originally said about film and theatre critics:

Those that can, act - those that can't act, direct - those that can't act or direct become critics...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Personally, I think that with many such things, as language evolves stylistically then so called 'rules' can be bent, if not broken. Personally, I use them to indicate a pause as someone searches for the right word, whether in dailogue or narrative. However, that is simply a style thing.

But it's not bending the rules or "a style thing," Dubrech. It's perfectly correct. Writing dialogue that is full of such pauses is a style choice, but if the pauses are there, the proper way to indicate them is with ellipses.

As for brackets (in the US we call these parentheses, and brackets are the square things like this []), whether to include the kind of parenthetical asides that call for them is a style choice, one which some might not approve, but once the asides are there, the brackets (parentheses) are correct, and the rules remain unbent.

And I concur with The Judge. When dialogue is suddenly broken off, it's the long dash, not a hyphen.

Critics often do think critically and the best ones can enhance our experience of a given piece of work, but the problem is that anyone can be a critic, and these days find a public venue such as YouTube to air uninformed views.

 

[Hex]

oops sorry - I was being inexact with language (I blame Word, which seems to elongate everything that's not actually connecting two words together). But a line for dialogue abruptly broken off, dots for something slower.
I don't think there'sanything wrong with playing with and stretching conventions, but if you totally reverse them that's just confusing and irritating. Like swapping full-stops and exclaimation marks! Think howirritating that would be.
Hex!

 

[slack]

Ellipses can be used to indicate an omission, a pause, or a trailing off. That said, I think there are often better ways to indicate a pause in dialogue, such as interjecting a dialogue tag in the middle of the conversation at a point in which a natural pause happens.

I think they are best used sparingly, if at all, in dialogue. Let the reader find his rhythm. They're on the same level as using italics to indicate stresses on words. Too much and it quickly becomes tedious.