Re: OT: Punctuation

Michael Potter wrote:
> I haven't had many reasons to use an ellipsis in email, but if I needed
> one, I probably wouldn't add spaces. Most likely, I've been corrupted by
> the Distributed Proofreaders guidelines (which say to use "...", though
> the old books usually have at least an em-sized space) :)
>
Well, I use ellipses all the time in my emails........ However, if I were
writing up a proper professional paper, I'd just use three dots ... (no
spaces) for matter deleted within a sentence in a quote, four dots ....
(still no spaces) if the deleted matter was at the end of the sentence. I'm
sure I did that in my dissertation, and the picky-picky person who perused
it page-by-page didn't call me on it (she did, to my woe, spot the
mis-numbered page.........). As to published matter, I'm afraid I don't read
so carefully as to notice whether it's ... or . . ., .... or . . . . (.)

Ellipses are useful too in writing dialogue--
  Percy said, "Well... I don't know...."