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Language:
English Language
Common Core Standards:

Transcript

00:01

Ellipses, a la Shmoop. Sometimes, when we’re thinking about something

00:07

really deep or difficult, like nuclear physics or world hunger or the final episode of The

00:12

Sopranos…

00:14

…our minds just need a break. A time-out. A brief pause. And how do we signal that the

00:21

brain train has jumped the tracks, if only for a few moments?

00:25

With an ellipsis <<uh-LIP-sis>>…

00:26

…otherwise known as… dot dot dot. The ellipsis serves two purposes. It can indicate

00:32

that a writer has hit the “Pause” button on his or her thought process…

00:36

…or an ellipsis may mean that words have been omitted from a piece of text.

00:41

Before we dive into the Sea of Examples, however, let’s look at the formatting rules for this

00:45

particular punctuation mark. We can’t just throw dots on a page and call

00:49

the result an ellipsis. Nope.

00:51

That’d be like Julia Child tossing stiffly beaten egg whites into a bowl and calling

00:55

them a soufflé.

01:02

An ellipsis, to be an ellipsis, must possess the following: Three dots. Not two. Not four.

01:08

Three.

01:09

There must be a space between each dot and a space before and after the ellipsis. So,

01:14

when we type an ellipsis, what we’re really typing is…

01:19

…space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space.

01:22

Also, make sure that the ellipsis, when typed out, stays on one line and doesn’t spread

01:29

to two. Now, how does this punctuation mark work when

01:32

we’re using it to omit words?

01:34

Say the high school football coach provided one hundred words to the school newspaper

01:37

about Friday night’s disaster of a game.

01:40

We have to chisel Coach’s one-hundred-word ramble down to a usable quote. This is where

01:45

the ellipsis comes in handy…

01:46

“Well, the truth is space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space we didn’t completely suck, although we kind

01:52

of did.”

01:53

See? One hundred words cut down to thirteen. That’s the power of the ellipsis.

01:58

Or what if our English teacher wants to read aloud a five-hundred page essay on why Twilight

02:02

is the worst book ever written? Can’t we trim that down a little?

02:06

“Twilight is space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space God-awful space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space

02:13

and should be burned.”

02:14

Once again, the ellipsis does amazing things. We went from tens of thousands of words to

02:19

eight. If the section of text we want to omit follows

02:23

a complete sentence, we plunk down a period at the end of the sentence…

02:26

…and then follow it with space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space.

02:30

Yes, there are four dots in a row. No, this is not a four-dot ellipsis. It’s just a

02:36

period, followed by an ellipsis, and there happen to be four dots total.

02:40

If the section of text we want to omit ends with a terminal punctuation mark, like an

02:45

exclamation point or a period or a question mark, we do the following…

02:53

…space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space-terminal punctuation mark.

02:55

For example, if we have the sentence, “Did Billy Bob take the train from Topeka that

03:00

arrived late?”…

03:01

…and we want to snip out the words “that arrived late”…

03:04

…our sentence would then read, “Did Billy Bob take the train from Topeka space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space-question

03:08

mark.” Finally, there’s one enormous caveat to

03:12

be aware of when it comes to using the omission ellipsis…

03:15

…be careful what gets cut. Trimming away unnecessary words to shorten a quote is one

03:20

thing…

03:20

…and trimming away words that change the meaning of the quote altogether is another.

03:28

Down that path lies trouble and possible legal action.

03:31

As mentioned earlier, the ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in a train of

03:35

thought.

03:36

Maybe the writer wants to show that time has passed.

03:38

“Wayne thought about going for a run space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space but, five hours later, he was still on the

03:45

sofa, watching Honey Boo-Boo.”

03:47

Maybe the writer wants to show that a list is unfinished.

03:50

“Leslie contemplated the ingredients she needed for the cake: flour, sugar, chocolate,

03:55

space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space” Or perhaps the writer has simply run out of

03:58

dialogue.

03:59

“Dude,” Jack said, “it’s like, you know, space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space”

04:04

“Yeah, man,” Bill replied. “Yeah, I feel you space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space”

04:08

While it’s grammatically correct to use an ellipsis to show a break in a train of

04:12

thought, many readers find the practice annoying…

04:14

…like, really, really, really annoying. So, keep the mental break ellipses to a minimum.

04:20

And that’s it for the dot dot dot. Not only does it help us shorten sentences…

04:23

…but it can indicate when we’ve contemplated enough pre-calc for one day space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space

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