Monday, June 30, 2008

So, What's Up with Ellipses

A friend posted a note about the over use or misuse of Ellipses. Those three little dots in a sentences that give you time to think or remember what is implied.

I've thought about it and the ellipses don't bother me so much. However, after my reflection, I realized I use the word "so" way too much. That's my pledge, to stop using so, well, so much. I'm not a valley girl and I own a thesaurus. I can do better!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL... I've been working on this paper of mine trying to avoid ellipses. It's really hard for me! I get into a rut with some words. "Though" is a crutch I rely on entirely too often.

Eccentric Scholar said...

I use a lot of ellipses, and I've recently become aware that they can be quite expressive, like miniature pictographs. For example, If I said, "I couldn't sleep last night . . ." then the ellipses could conjure images of "counting sheep," each dot a little lamb. Or, if I said, "I have so much to do . . ." then the dots could suggest bullets in a to-do list. I pursued this concept in a little study of a novelist who used gobs and gobs of ellipses. You can read my findings online at my OneLetterWords.com site.