Three dots. Space before? Space after?
The way I see it, there are two usages for the little buggers.
- as an ellipsis, to show that something has been left out
- to imply continuation or trailing off
In the second case, I don't think there should be a space between the end of the sentence and the three dots. "I think it should just be allowed to trail..." In face, if there were a space before the three dots it could lead to confusion - you might think they signalled omission.
Although I can find plenty of guidance on the use of dots as ellipses, I can't find anything about the second usage.
If you know, please spill the beans (or if you just want to tell me you think I'm right - that tends to go down pretty well too)!
Quote from Wikipedia;
ReplyDelete'Bringhurst suggests that normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows. He provides the following examples:
i … j k…. l…, l l, … l m…? n…..!'
Although the article also provides some rather over detailed alternative explanations...
Just realised I finished that with three dots!
I don't use dots to indicate something missing but I use them a lot at the end of statements. It's not so much trailing off as indicating to the reader that they should have a think about my previous statement and decide that I am very profound or amusing or both. It can be any number of dots (3+) depending on how deeply I would like them to think!
ReplyDeleteNadine, I read that too and I agree with it. But although the writer goes into (great!) detail about using the dots to indicate something has been taken out, there's nothing about implying continuation - or, as Fran says, profundity! I remain in the dark... (yet profound)
ReplyDeleteInterestingly (or not), there is a specific character for ellipses for use on computers: … (Unicode 2026, HTML …, LaTeX \ldots).
ReplyDeleteIt has less spacing between the dots than three full stops in a row, and is barely ever used because it's not on a keyboard.
I note that even Blogger uses "substuff said..." with three separate dots.
and no space... fuel to my fire...
ReplyDelete... [that's my post, which strangely vanished]
ReplyDeleteWell I'm afraid I feel compelled to question the space/no space argument. I use ... frequently and usually as a 'trail off' to a sentence to induce suspence in the readers mind. In which case one would expect there to be a word or two to follow my incomplete sentence therefore there should be a space before the ... as in any flow of words. I rest my case.
ReplyDelete