May 21, 2008

The Ellipsis

I hate the ellipsis. [...]

Actually, I hate the mis-usage of the ellipsis. It does not mean to take a brief break from writing to eat a bagel and come back and finish the sentence. If the last sentence read: "It does not mean to take a brief break from writing to eat a bagel... and come back and finish the sentence", it would mean something happened somewhere between the half eaten bagel and finishing your sentence that you aren't willing to tell me about. And personally, either tell me what happened or don't. Please don't taunt me with the a great literary bagel mystery.

Please do not use the ellipsis to build suspense. They do not build suspense. They construct unending mysteries that not even Sherlock Holmes can solve because technically they are not mysteries at all, but instead just the misuse of a grammatical symbol.