Dot Dot Dot

• December 8th, 2005 • 1 Comments • soapbox, type •

Greetings, Internet.
I’d like to introduce you to a dear friend of mine: the ellipsis.

…

Does he look familiar? I’m sure you’ve met him before; I would wager that he is quickly becoming one of the most used punctuation marks online. Actually, strike that last remark. The little ellipsis here is (by my estimation) quickly becoming one of the most abused punctuation marks in the world of e-mail and instant-messaging. Oh, I think you know what I’m talking about! Discourteous electronic correspondence treats this poor little punctuation mark like a piece of garbage. Let’s have a look at the – ahem – ‘writing’ that brought about this little lesson.

ANYWAY…3 years ago, come this January… I decided I really was FAT… I realized size 16 was disgusting…so…I did something about it and guess what!?!?!?!?! I now am a size 6!!!! I lost 45 lbs in 8 months.

What did I do…the obvious…eat less and move my butt more. HA! and get support!!!!!

I’m not entirely sure how one would classify this grouping of words; it makes me think about picking up this former fatty by the collar and shaking her vigorously while yelling, “LEARN WHAT A PERIOD IS FOR GOD’S SAKE!” I found this little tidbit on a website with a section of letters from listeners to a radio program. I opted not to subject anyone to more of the letter as the person not only continues to use bizarre marks resembling the ellipsis such as ‘….‘ and even worse ‘……‘. Oh, it makes me wince.

So what exactly is an ellipsis? I’ll interrupt myself momentarily about how punctuation marks evolve. The title of this very blog indicates what used to be: no punctuation whatsoever.

WRITTENMATERIALWASJUSTALONGSTRANDOFWORDSPUTTOGETHERMOSTOFITWASINLATIN

Reading the above sentence is a little confusing, if not hard to follow the train of thought. The Greeks had entire walls of scriptio continua to document important things going on in the world: such as who had stabbed whom, why the gods were angry this week, and so forth. It was some time much, much later in the Dark Ages when clever Irish monks decided that the Bible would be much easier to read if there were actually spaces between different words. Ho ho! And there you have been, taking spaces for granted. For shame! By amazing coincidence, it was also Irish monks who figured that in addition to spaces between words, grouping similar words by inserting some kind of symbol would help to clarify thoughts a bit. Thus, at the end of these new word groupings, or sentences the monks added newfangled devices called full stops which looked just so: ‘..,‘ or ‘;‘. Around AD 1200, other full stops such as ‘//‘ and ‘—‘ were used. Leaping ahead to the 1500s, the traditional full stop or period came about. One can see where the ellipsis came from by examining older full stop methods that used multiple periods.

Right then: we know where the ellipsis came from, but what exactly does it do? What does the word ‘ellipsis’ even mean? Amazingly we can look back to those trusty ol’ Greeks for the answer: the word ‘ellipsis’ is Greek for ‘omission.’ Ah-HA! The missing piece of the puzzle finally surfaces. If the word used to name the mark means omission, then by a stunning use of logic, we can determine that the ellipsis itself is used to omit items from a written passage. Hearkening back to Former Fatty’s miserable letter, one can immediately note the lack of education on the matter:

What did I do…the obvious…eat less and move my butt more. HA! and get support!!!!!

What is the writer trying to omit? The ellipsis indicates that information was left out between the words ‘What did I do’ and ‘the obvious,’ but what? I suspect that she needs to move her butt more to the book store and pick up a style manual of some kind. Former Fatty here is obviously enthusiastic about punctuation marks; just the wrong kind. Rather than abuse the ellipsis, she should be abusing, er, using the comma (and/or periods).

Now, I realize that it can be appropriate to use the ellipsis to trail off in an enticing way… However, it is my opinion that this particular use of the ellipsis is what has lead to its abuse. Punctuation functions as a way to describe the pauses and verbal rests that we use when speaking out loud. The ellipsis, describes an almost ‘pregnant pause’ wherein the speaker stops talking not immediately, but almost softly, to engage the listener in further conversation or thought. In the case of Former Fatty’s letter, we can determine that she wants to entice the reader with…all of her…comments…yet fails. Why? Her sentence should be intriguing enough on its own: she describes the admirable act of losing weight. There are too many ellipses in her sentence. Imagine how it would sound if someone was speaking: “What did I do [insert an uncomfortable silence here] the obvious [insert an equally uncomfortable silence here] eat less and move my butt more.” One would go mad from having to wait for her to finish speaking. During each episode of silence indicated by the ellipses, there would be an awkward feeling of the speaker wanting the listener to come to some sort of conclusion; obviously this would be an inappropriate and strange way of speaking. For Former Fatty’s letter, she obviously wants to use a casual style that mimics actual speech. Rather than pepper the screen with too many periods, she likely should make use of commas. Alternatively, marks such as the often ignored semi-colon and colon could be used. There are options to fix that sentence:

Option 1: New Marks
What did I do? The obvious: I ate less and moved my butt more.

Option 2: Rearrangement
What I did do was obvious: I ate less and moved my butt more.

Option 3: Get Me to Write It Instead
What was the secret to my success? The answer is undoubtedly obvious: eating less, following a regular regiment of exercise, and rallying support to my cause from my family and friends.

Fantasies of grandeur aside, people like Former Fatty need to stop the abuse. Online correspondence has helped to contribute to the downfall of capital letters and massive beatings of punctuation marks. I MUST share a passage from a wonderful book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss.

“I write quite differently in emails,” people say, with a look of inspired and happy puzzlement – a look formerly associated only with starry-eyed returnees from alien abduction. “Yes, I write quite differently in emails, especially in the punctuation. I feel it’s OK to use dashes all the time, and exclamation marks. And those dot, dot, dot things!”
“Ellipsis,” I interject.
“I can’t seem to help it!” they continue. “It’s as if I’ve never heard of semi colons! Dot, dot, dot! And everyone’s doing the same!”

—from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Ms. Truss makes an excellent segue out one of the primary problems with communicating online which is heralded by punctuation abuse: speed. The Internet is, without a doubt the most influential world-wide force in communication. However, the nature of the Internet happens to be of an instantaneous nature. That is, when people write e-mails or instant message there exists the desire to transmit thoughts and ideas as quickly as could happen in a face-to-face conversation. Unfortunately this cannot happen primarily due to lack of non-verbal cues. When people communicate ‘in real-life’ there are variations in tone and subtle body/facial movements that help to convey a certain meaning in a conversation. When someone says the words ‘oh really’ there can be a multitude of meanings that cannot be determined by the words on screen alone. Instant expectations have paved the way to laziness when it comes to punctuation: ‘oh really’ on its own doesn’t tell us much. By adding punctuation, we can change the meaning greatly.

Nonchalant: Oh, really.
Inquisitive: Oh really?
Exclamatory: Oh really!
Surprised: Oh, really?
Uncaring: Oh. Really.

I won’t even touch on how adding italics can help to change emphasis. Unfortunately, due to the amoebic laziness and craving for instant communication, ‘oh really’ has not only lost its valuable punctuation, but been boiled down to the disgusting “O RLY.” Admittedly, the nature of the Internet fosters a speedy evolution of different communication tricks based on need. That is, the need to communicate is urgent, thus punctuation is laid to waste and vowels run off as if being chased by wild animals. The Internet has undoubtedly made a major change in how language appears in its written form. Personally I argue that rather than evolving into a change for the better, it has caused a dive back into the Dark Ages—strike that—causing English to dive further back past the Dark Ages! At the very least those clever Irish Monks had determined a way to make print easier to read by adding spaces and periods. When the Irish were writing their illuminated manuscripts, books were a precious commodity: only the super-wealthy (By super-wealthy, I’m talking about kings and nobles here!) owned books. In a day and age where even someone considered to be below the poverty line owns a personal computer and printer, it seems that asking one to simply follow the rules of writing is very little to ask.

Then again…