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Does anyone else find that ellipses are too often used for malicious intent. I understand that part of their function is to indicate a dramatic pause, but I find them hard to decifer especially with text messenging and emails. They always seem to imply a sense of irritation or impatience. Maybe my point is that they are digitally overused.

Dracula gives an example of the malicious ellipses: "I never drink ... wine"

Anyway I wrote a post on my take of ellipses if you are interested.

http://www.typeandglyph.com/2009/02/dot-dot-dot/

I'm not sure what you mean...

Can you be more... specific? ;-)

(Sorry, grntwlkr, I just couldn't resist.)

I think it's mostly used in electronic communication to indicate gaps in reasoning and tangential thoughts without suffering the hassle of exploring each strand to it's logical conclusion.

It saves lots of space, as you relegate the work of finishing your sentences to your unfortunate readers, leaving clues of varying vagueness in your slothful path.

So the above can translate to:

Ha! Like... its EZ 2 do... + more fun n all.

Bellyfeel doubleplusgood.
_____________________________________________
Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
www.ivangdesign.com

I think you bring up a good point about use of ellipses, although to me, they're underused, not overused.

Too often I see people using periods when they should be using ellipses.

I'm worried that ellipses are going the way of the semicolon, being misunderstood and underused.

They are also used to indicate someone's voice trailing off... or an unfinished thought. And, of course, between parentheses they indicate that some text has been omitted.

Check out the Wikipedia entry. I like the part where it states, "The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it."

And, of course, between parentheses they indicate that some text has been omitted.

Or even without the parentheses. I love the quote about our local mayor:

He has ... done ... a good ... job.

Now *that's* an endorsement!

Oops ... touché ... definitely malicious.

Thanks for all the responses. I find ellipses fascinating because they have a very emotional quality both grammatically and typographically.

Once upon a time there was a publishing house here
where the … ellipsis character was banned. Instead
the edited manuscripts contained three spaced periods.
It led to published books with hilarious consequences .
. .

I told a client last week that their copywriters' constant use of ellipsis made them sound like a teenager's livejournal. For what it's worth.

oh, I hoped this was about http://dot-dot-dot.us/