airINDIA
1st June 2007, 08:07 AM
A quick show of hands now! Let's admit it. We all do it; either habitually, or have done it one time or another white writing something on computer, especially, online. Most of us have all used "..." dots to seperate our sentences.
Just writing above sentences, I had to refrain myself from doing it twice. Over the last decade, the use of the dots has grown so much, the English grammer "pundits" have been forced to sit up and take notice.
I was completely surprised to know that there is an actual word for it in English: Ellipsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis). Well, the word has always been there. But what was only being used in Mathamatical or Scientific applications, is now being used in English Literature also. In fact, it's also part of Bluebook (A uniform system of citation).
I had no idea before today, that there are "correct" or "incorrect" ways of using the dots. Appearantly you are only supposed to use three dots, and even then there are different rules about spaces. I guess, because of my "bad" habit of always being so picky about grammer and text organization, I've almost always used them properly, not knowing the grammatical correctness behind it. (Go ahead, check all my posts...:3: )
Did anyone else know this? if not are they surprised? or am I just babbling here...
Just writing above sentences, I had to refrain myself from doing it twice. Over the last decade, the use of the dots has grown so much, the English grammer "pundits" have been forced to sit up and take notice.
I was completely surprised to know that there is an actual word for it in English: Ellipsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis). Well, the word has always been there. But what was only being used in Mathamatical or Scientific applications, is now being used in English Literature also. In fact, it's also part of Bluebook (A uniform system of citation).
I had no idea before today, that there are "correct" or "incorrect" ways of using the dots. Appearantly you are only supposed to use three dots, and even then there are different rules about spaces. I guess, because of my "bad" habit of always being so picky about grammer and text organization, I've almost always used them properly, not knowing the grammatical correctness behind it. (Go ahead, check all my posts...:3: )
Did anyone else know this? if not are they surprised? or am I just babbling here...