Talk:Ellipsis

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[edit] APA usage

Can someone add some info in the English usage section about what APA style calls for?


[edit] Grammatical versus typographical ellipsis

This article discusses mainly the 'three dots' ellipsis but leaves what an ellipsis actually is to the end. Wouldn't it be better to bring the discussion of the grammatical aspect of an ellipsis to the head of the article, followed by how an ellipsis is represented and when it needs to be represented? Alternatively, how about two articles? :-)

  • Elliptical construction and Ellipsis (figure of speech) could be merged together. But they don't really have any place in this article (I am referring to merge tags present in this revision). This article appears to be mostly about the punctuation and the modern usage thereof, whereas the other two articles are about the grammatical construct. --60.240.231.200 02:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How many dots?

For example, in the sentence "The man that I saw in the park was tall", the word "that" which introduces the relative phrase can be elided, leaving "The man I saw...", which has the same meaning.

I have removed this from the article. The word "that" in this context is not "a word required by strict grammatical rules", so the given definition of an ellipsis doesn't apply to it. And besides, it doesn't sound like rhetoric or poetry! Can anyone come up with a better example? I know nothing of these arty matters. ;) -- Oliver P. 01:34 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I've stuck in the Pepys example, which is the best example I know of. Any chance of somebody providing a "translation" of the Burns example? I'm afraid I don't understand it (which probably makes me a terrible person or something). --Camembert
A very good example, Mr. Camembert! I haven't a clue about the meaning of the Burns quote, but I've found a source in which it is written slightly differently. So I'm going to edit it a bit, and maybe format the lines in a more poemy way, and hope you don't notice that I'm also rearranging your sentences to remove the ghastly possessives-without-apostrophe-ses... ;) -- Oliver P. 02:37 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
"Ghastly"?! I'll have you know, sir, that my family has used that formation for three hundred years, and... oh alright, I'll let you off ;) --Camembert

On a slightly different thread, I always thought one used 4 dots if it trails at the end of a sentence. See: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.html Sam.

Hmm. Never seen that before... The Chicago Manual of Style, eh? Is this just what the University of Chicago does? -- Oliver P. 02:37 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
That's what I learned, too. Three dots within a sentence, four dots to end the sentence, three dots after a period and space along with lack of capitalization for the beginning of a sentence. Not sure how widespread it is. - Gwalla 04:02, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Grammatical ellipsis

Is the "In grammar of languages" part any different from the "figure of speech" part? If not, can it be removed? -- Oliver P. 03:21 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Actually I wasn't sure mention in figure of speech part. I just rememebered I learned ellipsis in my grammar class so I added a mention about it from my memory. I am glad if you or anyone can integrate them into one. -- Taku 03:48 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
I might leave it to someone more expert on these matters. :) -- Oliver P. 03:57 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Moved this

In grammar of languages, ellipsis is some way to explain some kind of omission. e.g.

"Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia ever created"
can be seen as a short way to say
"Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia that is ever created"
But this can be explained without ellipsis. "Created" can be regarded as past participle, so it modifies a noun encylopedia just like adjective does.

to here. It seems to me the first example is just an incomplete sentence rather than really being an ellipsis, and the rest of it is just a debate. I also moved this here

Some style guide says in quotes you need to surround ellipses with brackets to show it was modified from the original.

, because I think it confuses ellipsis points (used to indicate omissions) with interpolated material (which is inserted between brackets). Not to say that SOME style manual doesn't suggest it, but it would be good to know which one. And, for what it's worth, the Chicago Manual of Style says use dots/ellipsis points/suspension points, never asterisks/stars. -- Someone else 04:53 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

I was wondering about the asterisks, thinking that perhaps some other languages use those? But I've certainly never seen it in any form of English I've seen. -- John Owens 05:03 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
Someone must do it or we wouldn't be warned against it<G>. Like you, I wonder who it is! -- Someone else 05:19 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
For those who are unfamiliar with 18th century Scots dialect, maybe this will help - Burns is saying "Is there (a)n honest(man among us) who hangs his head because of his Poverty". The poet uses ellipsis to personalise and highlight "honest Poverty". A good example.

Now, for those who are unfamiliar with 21st century English - can I suggest that the encyclopedia example should be:

"Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia ever created"

can be seen as a short way to say

"Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia that has ever "been" created"

Tiles 07:40 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Again, though, "Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia ever created" is a perfectly complete sentence on its own. "Created" is a past participle modified by the adverb "ever" and modifying in turn the noun "encyclopedia". "Encyclopedias ever created" specified a set of encyclopedias, and the sentence says that Wikipedia is the greatest of these. I've removed the example from the article:
“Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia ever created”
which can be interpreted as a short way to say: “Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia that has ever been created”

If someone wants to mangle this into a better example, go for it, but there are already a few there.

BTW, I believe the asterisks are generally used between paragraphs in block-quotes. They can also be used to denote section breaks, often in fiction (eg, Through the Looking Glass), though this may not be an actual "ellipsis". --Spikey 23:24, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the thee spaced stars as a section break is an elipsis. It is almost exclusively used to indicate time has passed, and the author omitted the events that occured in that time period. IT basicly indicates the ommision of events, like the elipsis indicates the ommision of words. 65.41.53.137 00:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ellipses in quotations

"...an ellipsis is used enclosed in brackets ([ ]) or, more often, slashes (//) if one wishes to omit a part of an original quotation."

Is there any basis for the "more often" claim here? In my experience omissions/deletions are marked with a bare ellipsis or, more often, with an ellipsis enclosed in brackets in publications. I have seen the occasional use of slashes in informal text like email or some manuscripts, but in those cases it seems to have been for authoring convenience, not as a typographical habit (like the use of slashes to denote italics). Also the entry on brackets includes its usage in quotes, something the entry on slashes does not.

I'm not sure where the author got this statement about enclosing an ellipsis in brackets. I always understood that a simple ellipsis, without brackets, is used to indicate an omission. That is what the Chicago Manual of Style (which is the style manual referenced in the same paragraph) recommends. In fact, Chicago does not even mention brackets in that context. (I looked this up in both the 1993 14th edition and the 1969 12th edition—14th: 10.47–10.63; 12th: 10.31–10.40) Brackets are used when replacing original text with one's own words. Perhaps the brackets/slashes usage is British practice? Mateo SA | talk 04:21, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting this article

I would suggest splitting this article into ellipsis (punctuation) and ellipsis (rhetoric) with ellipsis being a disambiguation pages. This article is already big enough that one has to scroll few screens of text to find out that it is also about the rhetorical figure of speech. Also, maybe more importantly, it causes problems with interwiki links. For example in Polish ellipsis as punctuation is wielokropek but ellipsis as the rhetorical figure is elipsa which also means ellipse, the flattened circle. Rafał Pocztarski 05:05, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ellipsis (punctuation) in other languages

This article will probably need sections for differences in other languages like those in the quotation mark article. The differences are mostly in spaces and brackets. I will split this article into sections and write about Polish rules. Rafał Pocztarski 05:12, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)


I don't think ellipsis in other languages ought to be on this page at all. That discussion should be made elsewhere. Brian Miller

[edit] The Ellipsis as a Character in Fonts

I've done a fair bit of digging and have been unable to find answers to these questions:

1. Most computer fonts these days seem to include the ellipsis as a single character that displays as three dots. The dots are often smaller and more crowded than the dots that would be displayed if one typed 3 periods. Is the ellipsis - a single character within a computer font - included in computer fonts as a work-around that prevents an ellipsis from being mangled by a line break?

2. Was the ellipsis a "cast-in-metal" character during the Linotype days, or did the Linotype operator make each one up as needed, and according to the applicable style book? Some style books call for the ellipsis to be spaced more widely than single en spaces, much different than the spacing of the character found in typical computer fonts, which are sometimes narrower than el spaces.

3. How does one reconcile the 3-dot and 4-dot ellipses with the fact that (at least among the fonts I looked at) computer fonts only supply a 3-dot ellipsis character? Setting a three-dot-ellipsis character - preceded or followed by a standard period - looks downright ugly.

It might be worth mentioning the use of ellipses in writing for broadcast news. I once read news on the radio, back in the Teletype days, from copy provided by a special broadcast news service. It was not uncommon for ellipses to be used as the end-punctuation for every sentence, except the last one, in a paragraph. Since spoken-word English is basically punctuated by inflection and pauses, the ellipses - used in this way - made the reading of news copy much easier than standard punctuation might.

I think it would be useful (or at least interesting) information for the article. Thanks for any wisdom or history anyone can provide.

To difficult to answer?--Hhielscher 17:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Space after ellipsis at beginning of phrase

This article has no examples about the use of space after the ellipsis when the ellipsis is used to indicate an omission or continuation at the beginning of the sentence. Is there a space between the ellipsis and the first word, or not?

For example, in a TV caption (subtitles), which of these is correct:

- So, we were going...

- Really?

- ... home with our dogs, when it happened.

or

- So, we were going...

- Really?

- ...home with our dogs, when it happened.

[edit] Star Wars

The opening "a long time ago" line in the Star Wars movies (mistakenly) uses a 4-dot ellipsis instead of the 3-dot variety. The later movies kept continued to use the 4-dot version as an homage to and to remain consistent with the earlier movies. -- 24.11.90.115 10:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ellipsis in Japanese

Do we have a source confirming that "…" to indicate speechlessness is really from Japanese? Seems to me that that was a comix convention long before manga started getting any sort of widespread play in the West. Can someone dig up old "Blondie" strips or something?

—Wiki Wikardo

the earliest i can remember seeing this used is in old nintendo games. though since they were mostly made in japan anyway (and then hilariously translated), this doesn't tell much. it made it to the US before the manga craze, though. PS i love your username! --dan 07:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Though I can't answer your question, it would seem that this is not really about neutrality (which deals with points of views in a debate about something) but rather a factual error. Don't you have a template for indicating factual errors as opposed to disputes about neutrality? Cornince 21:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Use {{cn}}. –EdC 21:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ellipse?

I've added a Cite Needed flag to the claim that the ellipsis is also known as an ellipse. I have never seen this before in my life, and if no citation is forthcoming I'm inclined to remove the interjection entirely. --Llewdor 23:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Recently, I've been referring to a singular ellipsis as an ellipse; however, I seem to recall primarily calling it an ellipsis before. I think at some point, someone falsely corrected me (or maybe I just got confused in a math class) that an ellipse is the proper name for an ellipsis. I have definitely heard others use ellipse instead of ellipsis, but perhaps this is a result of miscommunication and misunderstandings. After having read this article, I now believe some may improperly or informally refer to ellipsis as ellipse. In defense of using ellipse, I didn't spend time searching for a source that supports the idea that ellipse is a proper substitute for ellipsis, but a source may exist. FalseLobster 04:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation page for this?

Anyone else agree? 76.185.19.196 13:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Please add new discussion at the bottom of the talk page. I've moved it for you.
No, I don't see any advantage over the current situation. –EdC 21:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
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