At 07:03 PM 11/22/00 -0800, Richard Person wrote:
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 16:31:41 -0800, LarryF wrote:
No spaces between the periods of an ellipsis. (Alexandria... and the
roof)
Excuse me? Are you saying an ellipsis does not have a space
between each dot?
If so what are you basing that on?
According to the source I use most often (The Gregg Reference
And Strunk and White's _The Elements of Style_ as well. (I use the third
edition.)
Manual, 7th Ed.) Allyn did it correctly the first time with
'plates . . . a blob'.
That's an _American_ usage of the ellipsis. British usage is space-three
periods-space (works better for word-wrapping in electronic text). Three
periods with no spaces in-between are perfectly acceptable, especially in
ASCII text. An ellispsis with three periods and a space in the middle of a
sentence is convenient for word-wrapping.
ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION uses ellipses with three spaced periods for their
house style. Other fiction magazines like FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
don't, preferring three unspaced periods; looks fine, though I suppose the
choice of font has a lot to do with it. Granted most American books use
three spaced periods, but they look like a waste of space in ASCII text with
monospace fonts.
Fact is, an ellipsis doesn't have to be ' . . . ', though that
is the most common form. I've seen some authors use two hyphens
('--') for the same purpose as the three dots.
An emdash is not the same as an ellipsis.
That they may have similar uses is beside the point.
Emdashes can be used for parentheticals while ellipses cannot.
A pause using an emdash is more abrupt than one using an ellipsis.
Dashes can be used to indicate the omission of a word or letter--looking
more like strikethrough marks than anything else when, say, used to avoid
printing someone's name (Mr. --------).