Stupid syntax question.

[jezzaz]

Is it "she was happy...for a moment" or is it "she was happy... for a moment"?

Is a space required after the periods?

Looking over others work, I'm seeing both. Which is right?

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Is it "she was happy...for a moment" or is it "she was happy... for a moment"?

Is a space required after the periods?

Looking over others work, I'm seeing both. Which is right?

I believe both are correct with the understanding that you're not quoting another work and using ellipses to indicate omitted text. If you were quoting another work, placement and spacing of ellipses matters to indicate where you made the snip.

The format of ellipses has changed, largely because we don't use typewriters anymore. If you were using a typewriter, you'd type an ellipsis as space-period-space-period-space-period-space, without additional spaces before and after. We just don't do that anymore. I think a lot of the first renditions of the single-spaced ellipsis had no leading or trailing spaces ("She was happy...for a moment.") I think that's less common now. I think current usage tends to add a space before or after the ellipsis, depending on where the break begins in your mind. I think of it is as where you want the longer pause, which is hard to explain, since it would sound exactly the same no matter what if you were reading it out loud.

 

[Damoiselle]

Huh. I've always done it without spaces.

 

[AlinaX]

Please add a space after the dots... for assisting sensible line breaks if nothing else.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Please add a space after the dots... for assisting sensible line breaks if nothing else.

I think line breaks and right margin justification are probably why people transitioned to the breaking space when typewriters became paperweights.

 

[KeithD]

The publishing ellipsis has spaces between the dots and the text:

She was happy . . . for the moment.

(Chicago Manual of Style, edition 16, 13.48)

The confusion is that the computer ellipsis doesn't provide the spaces. The rub is that the dots in the ellipsis are supposed to hold together, not break, at the end of a line, and there's no way to control that with Lit. submissions.

 

[_Lynn_]

The publishing ellipsis has spaces between the dots and the text:

She was happy . . . for the moment.

(Chicago Manual of Style, edition 16, 13.48)

The confusion is that the computer ellipsis doesn't provide the spaces. The rub is that the dots in the ellipsis are supposed to hold together, not break, at the end of a line, and there's no way to control that with Lit. submissions.

That's how I do it now too.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Here's one quick and dirty run-down of the options:

https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/ellipses.asp

What's not included in there is that different style guides make different recommendations. MLA and APA call for a space before and a space after the ellipsis. The Associate Press specifies no spaces between the dots, but spaces before and after them. The Chicago Style Manual is still standard in publishing, but it's a standard that's departed from with increasing frequency. In business writing, I practically never see ellipses with spaces between them.

There's an additional consideration if you are publishing something online, as in this case. If you use a Chicago Style Manual ellipses, automatic line breaks will divide your ellipsis if it falls in the right place for that to happen. The only way to avoid that is with a Unicode character, and even then, it could cause justification issues because of the failure to break before or after the ellipsis.

I tend to see this more as a typography issue than a punctuation issue, except where the ellipsis is used to indicate omitted words from a quote.

Perhaps I'm just lax, but it seems to me that as long as you've got three dots where you want them, you've conveyed the pause you intended.

 

[jaF0]

I do it ... like so.

Dots not spaced, but spaces before and after.


Why? Why ask why? I like it that way, that's why.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I do it ... like so.

Dots not spaced, but spaces before and after.


Why? Why ask why? I like it that way, that's why.

The AP does, too, but I like your reason better.

 

[KeithD]

Here's one quick and dirty run-down of the options:

https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/ellipses.asp

What's not included in there is that different style guides make different recommendations. MLA and APA call for a space before and a space after the ellipsis. The Associate Press specifies no spaces between the dots, but spaces before and after them. The Chicago Style Manual is still standard in publishing, but it's a standard that's departed from with increasing frequency. In business writing, I practically never see ellipses with spaces between them.

*Sigh* We write fiction here. All cited style guides other than the Chicago Manual of Style are for other modes of writing, not fiction. Short stories aren't scientific reports, news reports, or business letters. If your electrical panel was arcing sparks, you wouldn't call in a plumber.

 

[jaF0]

If your electrical panel was arcing sparks, you wouldn't call in a plumber.

Unless a broken pipe was spraying water at it.

(No wonder we can't get any water through these pipes, they're full of WIRES!!)

 

[jezzaz]

Arrggggh!

I ask a SIMPLE QUESTION and you BASTARDS make it even more complicated!!

I hate you all ... and wish... I knew...the best way ...to have you all executed in your sleep

I think I'm gonna go with the " ... " approach. I'm re-editing and reformatting all my stuff into Ebook format, and I notice I am entirely inconsistent with this, and want to get it consistent, hence me asking.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I ask a SIMPLE QUESTION and you BASTARDS make it even more complicated!!

I hate you all ... and wish... I knew...the best way ...to have you all executed in your sleep

I think I'm gonna go with the " ... " approach. I'm re-editing and reformatting all my stuff into Ebook format, and I notice I am entirely inconsistent with this, and want to get it consistent, hence me asking.

I always sleep with one ellipsis open.

That was so entertaining that I'm gonna have to check out some of your work. So did you want to talk about whether to add a fourth dot when the ellipsis is at the end of a sentence? (Hint: Opinion is divided!)

Congrats on your Ebook-to-be.

 

[jaF0]

So did you want to talk about whether to add a fourth dot when the ellipsis is at the end of a sentence? (Hint: Opinion is divided!)

I do that when I want a thought to wander off into ...




Note, no 4th.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Is it "she was happy...for a moment" or is it "she was happy... for a moment"?

Is a space required after the periods?

Looking over others work, I'm seeing both. Which is right?

I do this... because it's fastest to type and keep the ellipsis with the preceding word which helps line wraps go right. If you do ... this, you end up with the risk of this happening
... when the line wraps - an orphan ellipsis. That was a forced line wrap, obviously.

And nothing looks worse than an orphan ellipsis.

Also, you wouldn't end a sentence with a period like this . Unless you were that blogging bloke who wandered by last week. It's the same principle - punctuation should stay with the word being punctuated, not hover in between it and the next.

You have to adjust your usage to suit the technology available, I think, taking into account that compositing and typesetting has changed over time. Guttenberg would be horrified, I know, but there you are. Progress, it's a thing. Gosh, there's a machine, where's my hammer.

EB pauses to change the record. For those who don't know what a record is, it's a 12" diameter round vinyl object with a spindle sized hole in the middle, placed on a turn-table to reproduce superior sound. You need to wait for the tubes to warm up first, though .

 

[ElectricBlue]

So did you want to talk about whether to add a fourth dot when the ellipsis is at the end of a sentence? (Hint: Opinion is divided!)

I'm struggling with that myself right now, and am falling on the side of the terminal period, like this....

I wouldn't pop in an extra space after a colon, though. In fact, I always do a 'find and replace' two spaces and replace with one, as part of my final copy edit, to remove accidental double-spaces.

 

[SimonDoom]

I put a space before and after the ellipsis, and between each period within the ellipsis.

No. 1, this is the preferred Chicago Manual of Style way of doing it, and this is the single best and most authoritative authority for American fiction.

No. 2, I think it's more logical this way, and I'll explain why.

The formatting for an ellipsis should distinguish it from a period, which indicates the end of a sentence, and immediately follows the last letter of the sentence with no space.

It is useful sometimes to indicate whether, within the text that is replaced by the ellipsis, there is an ending to a sentence or not.

The way to do this is to place a fourth period immediately after the ellipsis, with no space between the third and last period. If you do not customarily place a space before and after each and every period in the ellipsis, this is not clear. The absence of a space makes it clear.

You should put a space before the first period in the ellipsis to indicate that the sentence is not ending after the last letter.

No. 3, the ONLY drawback I can see to doing it this way is that with Literotica formatting if you put spaces before and after every period in the ellipsis then there is the chance that with line breaks the ellipsis will be broken up. This is not a good thing, and it looks bad, but this is less of a bad thing, IMO, than the confusion that results if you do not put a space before and after every period. Clarity is more important than good looks.

No. 4. I don't think the AP style guide is a good guide for fiction. AP style is motivated by the desire to save space, because saving space on a newspaper page is an extremely valuable thing. It is not a particularly important value in a work of fiction, where space limitations are not a similar issue. So, for example, in AP style the serial comma is done away with, because it takes up space. But in CMOS the serial comma is strongly recommended for the sake of clarity. I think this is the right preference.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I put a space before and after the ellipsis, and between each period within the ellipsis.

No. 1, this is the preferred Chicago Manual of Style way of doing it, and this is the single best and most authoritative authority for American fiction.

No. 2, I think it's more logical this way, and I'll explain why.

The formatting for an ellipsis should distinguish it from a period, which indicates the end of a sentence, and immediately follows the last letter of the sentence with no space.

It is useful sometimes to indicate whether, within the text that is replaced by the ellipsis, there is an ending to a sentence or not.

The way to do this is to place a fourth period immediately after the ellipsis, with no space between the third and last period. If you do not customarily place a space before and after each and every period in the ellipsis, this is not clear. The absence of a space makes it clear.

You should put a space before the first period in the ellipsis to indicate that the sentence is not ending after the last letter.

No. 3, the ONLY drawback I can see to doing it this way is that with Literotica formatting if you put spaces before and after every period in the ellipsis then there is the chance that with line breaks the ellipsis will be broken up. This is not a good thing, and it looks bad, but this is less of a bad thing, IMO, than the confusion that results if you do not put a space before and after every period. Clarity is more important than good looks.

No. 4. I don't think the AP style guide is a good guide for fiction. AP style is motivated by the desire to save space, because saving space on a newspaper page is an extremely valuable thing. It is not a particularly important value in a work of fiction, where space limitations are not a similar issue. So, for example, in AP style the serial comma is done away with, because it takes up space. But in CMOS the serial comma is strongly recommended for the sake of clarity. I think this is the right preference.

Oh, Simon... You and your rules fetish.

I think Point No. 3 is really the key for electronic publication. Allowing that to happen just to put form over function doesn't make a great deal of sense to me, but on the other hand, I don't think it would be hard for a reader to figure out what happened.

If people put three dots in a row, I think we all know what it means. This is kind of a point without a distinction. Or a period without a point. Or a point with three periods. Something like that...

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I was going to comment that I'd never seen an ellipsis as dot-space-dot-space-dot, and that it would look very old-fashioned to this middle-aged Brit (much US punctuation does, like periods after Mr or in U.S.A., which died out earlier than the typewriter here).

Then of course I found two examples in the next book I picked up (CS Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 1952), and it really did jar me, as much as the mid-sentence exclamation marks in Jane Austen's dialogue.

No space before, three dots, space after, job done. Let the formatting do it's thing.

 

[jezzaz]

I always sleep with one ellipsis open.

...

Congrats on your Ebook-to-be.

E-BookS. Eight of them, with everything I've written on here, plus some extra small stories for the Ingrams & Associates series.

 

[ElectricBlue]

No. 3, the ONLY drawback I can see to doing it this way is that with Literotica formatting if you put spaces before and after every period in the ellipsis then there is the chance that with line breaks the ellipsis will be broken up. This is not a good thing, and it looks bad, but this is less of a bad thing, IMO, than the confusion that results if you do not put a space before and after every period. Clarity is more important than good looks.

It's not only Lit. I began using my approach after formatting 250k or so words for my e-pub and print-on-demand books - at one point working through a 350 page Word document to "see what it would look like when printed." The biggest nightmare, without doubt, was the random spaces left between words and careless punctuation edits - ellipsis being the worst, so many orphans from line wraps.

Compound that with left and right justified margins for print books - every out of place space can have a serious run on effect. My approach is now pragmatic, knowing how much time you can spend to get good copy - if you want to repurpose your content later on. Reading one of those book chapters just the other night, I still got it wrong.

Spaces in the wrong places jump off the page now - I spot them without reading the words because I trained my brain so much. It's an immediate visual thing for me. Doesn't make it "right" but my god it saves time and hurts my brain far less.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I'm struggling with that myself right now, and am falling on the side of the terminal period, like this....

I wouldn't pop in an extra space after a colon, though. In fact, I always do a 'find and replace' two spaces and replace with one, as part of my final copy edit, to remove accidental double-spaces.

I saw you picking on orphans in your other post. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

My understanding is that the new preferred style is not to put two spaces after colons or after a period. The new updates to MS Word try to enforce this with red underline. I had to disable it to avoid a sea of red. My thumbs put two spaces. It has nothing to do with any sort of conscious decision. I'm halfway through the next sentence before my brain catches up with whatever red stuff shows up. I don't think the single-spacing will be happening for me, except with CTRL+F.

Does anyone know why we're not supposed to double-space after periods anymore? The single space seems less organized and harder to read, so there must be a reason. Why do you do it?

 

[jezzaz]

I was going to comment that I'd never seen an ellipsis as dot-space-dot-space-dot, and that it would look very old-fashioned to this middle-aged Brit (much US punctuation does, like periods after Mr or in U.S.A., which died out earlier than the typewriter here).

Then of course I found two examples in the next book I picked up (CS Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 1952), and it really did jar me, as much as the mid-sentence exclamation marks in Jane Austen's dialogue.

No space before, three dots, space after, job done. Let the formatting do it's thing.

You convinced to do it your way... good job!

Also, I'm a Brit Abroad too, and although I've been here for just shy of 30 years, it's only when I started writing that I really began to see the differences in how Americans handle dialog (and the somewhat more limited word count and phrase usage) vs. how it's done at home.

American dialog is a lot more direct, with less contractions. British dialog and verbiage uses a lot more similes and contractions, and is more - for want of a better word - conversational than most US of the same. With the exception of one Orange Head Of Country, who is pure word salad, regardless of origin.

It's taken me years to even start shedding my UK style of writing dialog, and even now I haven't got shot of it completely (and I'm totally okay with that!)

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

E-BookS. Eight of them, with everything I've written on here, plus some extra small stories for the Ingrams & Associates series.

In that case, eight times the congratulations, plus a collection of smaller congratulations to be distributed among the smaller stories.