On …
Sick and tired of people asking me about my infamous use of “…”, I thought it would be appropriate to explain just exactly why I use it. First off, no. It isn’t an ellipse. It’s an ellipsis. Now, according to the omniscient wikipedia, the definition of an ellipses is as follows.
Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from Greek ἔλλειψις ‘omission’) in printing and writing refers to the row of three dots (… or . . . ) or asterisks (* * *) indicating an intentional omission. This punctuation mark is also called a and suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.
My use of … is slightly different than most. It’s a rather bad habit, but, well, being in the spirit of doing things a little differently, I came up with my own definition.
An Ellipsis is commonly used in most of my conversations because, well, that’s how I roll. I learned it from the master and commander, the one and only Joey Brooks. Used in place of “that doesn’t deserve an answer” or “I don’t have a good comeback”, it usually occurs in several sentences over the period of an hour. It is used in the presence of an awkward silence.
I don’t quite remember when I started using the ellipse. But as per my definition, I learned it from the one and only. Back in the day, I couldn’t come up with a comeback for the life of me. Or, someone would say something incredibly stupid. So I’d do what I thought best, and I’d present the ellipsis.
This is how a typical conversation would go (note: this conversation has never happened, but conversations like it have.
Joey Brooks: You know, you’re such a noob.
Me: …
Joey: …
Joey Brooks has signed off.
And, well, it’s kind of stuck. It’s a habit I’m trying to break very badly. But for those of you asking: there’s your answer.
Comments
Joey Brooks had a thought ¬
…
⇒ May 25, 2007, 8:02 pm
jakedahn had a thought ¬
…
⇒ May 25, 2007, 8:05 pm