Re: OT: Ellipsis Points

["Harriet Hodges" kapok@xxxxxxxx]

Yes, I yield to you, Patricia. Different stylebooks. Chicago does say one
may use commas. I shouldn't have been so doctrinaire.

Harriet Hodges

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patricia M. Godfrey" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2005 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Ellipsis Points


> Jordan wrote:
> ≪ whether there exists some internationally recognized symbol to
> indicate this, other than ellipsis ? I thought I might have seen
> something like that in the past, but I don't recall for sure. It would
> *not* have been a standard punctuation mark, though, more like a symbol
> -- if I'm remembering something that actually exists.≫
>
> Depends on what you mean by "ellipsis." In most fonts (and computerized
> typesetting systems, including Xy) there is a separate character for the
> conventional three points of a standard ellipsis (in Xy it's 258; I can
> get the ways of producing it in WP and Word if you want). AFAIK (but I
> could be wrong) it's pretty much standard in all languages using the
> roman alphabet. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be in the ISO Latin 1
> lists that I have, but they're not up to date. But I just tried to find
> it in the "Insert->common symbols" menu of Thunderbird, and it's not
> there. I see that George Scithers is opposed to using this character.
> Some publishers, however, want you to use it. If you don't know what
> your prospective publisher is going to want, consider which will be
> easier to do a CI on in whatever word processor is being used.
>
> As far as margins and line spacing go, I agree with George. But again,
> some publishers DO want you to put extra space between paragraphs (and
> not indent the first line of paragraphs). See also /The Columbia Guide
> to Online Style/ (Columbia University Press, 1998; at one point they
> were maintaining it online at www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/; if it's not
> there now, maybe Leslie knows what's become of it?)
>
> I also agree with George that there is nothing "tiresome or grating"
> about this. It's an absolutely established convention; people learn it
> (well, we used to; I couldn't say what goes on in so-called schools
> nowadays) in high school.
>
> ≪4. I read that there should be 3 periods and 3 spaces. If the
> deleted words are after a full sentence, is the first period right after
> the last letter ? Are there still only 3 periods including that one ?≫
>
> What George says is the basic procedure, followed in a lot of publishing
> houses. But there is a more complex and precise one, detailed in /The
> Chicago Manual of Style,/ 14th ed. The important thing about this more
> precise style is that, in a case like this, where the originals are
> unpublished primary sources, only the author can impose this style,
> because only he or she knows the precise state of the original and what
> has been omitted. If the author isn't the kind of compulsive nit-picker
> who can do this, better to just stick to the three-dot ellipsis and add
> an extra dot after it if it ends a sentence. (Note that if you use the
> real ellipsis character, you don't have to worry about spaces: the
> spacing is part of the character. You may worry about spaces before or
> after. I'm coming to that.)
>
> Now here is what /Chicago/ says: after first noting that just using the
> three-dot ellipsis (that ed. hadn't yet discovered the existence of the
> single character, so I am modifying its instructions to specify that)
> all the time, whether it comes in the middle, at the end, or at the
> beginning of a sentence, is widely done, it describes another method.
>
> a) Use the 3-dot symbol alone if the omission comes in the middle of a
> sentence.
>
> b) If other punctuation precedes or follows the omission, include it.
> (Note that this contradicts what Harriet says. Different publishers,
> different styles. But /Chicago/ is widely used in scholarly houses and
> even some not-so-scholarly ones.) And George's point, that it depends on
> whether the punctuation helps to clarify what is omitted, is very
relevant.
>
> c) If the omission comes at the end of a sentence, but what is quoted is
> grammatically a complete sentence, end the sentence with a period, then
> insert the three-dot symbol. (Obviously, you have to know what is and is
> not a grammatically complete sentence.) If the sentence ends with a
> quesstion mark or exclamation point, /Chicago/ says to insert the
> question mark or screamer, then the three-dot.
>
> In both these cases, I would consider it more logical to put the
> three-dot before the other punctuation, since in fact the omission comes
> _before_ the end of the sentence.
>
> d) If what remains is not a grammatically complete sentence, just usee
> the three-dot.
>
> e) An omission at the beginning of a quotation is not usually indicated.
>
> f) If the beginning of a sentence is omitted after a portion or the
> whole of a previous sentence has been quoted, end the previous sentence
> with its period (or question mark or screamer), then use the three-dot,
> then whatever you're going to quote of the next sentence.
>
> Here, I would put a space after the sentence-ending punctuation and
> before the three-dot.
>
> g) If a whole paragraph is omitted, put the three-dot at the end of the
> previous paragraph. If that par ends with a grammatically complete
> sentence (even if it's not the whole sentence in the original or not the
> last sentence in the original), put its closing punctuation (and I'd put
> a space) before the three-dot.
>
> h) "If a paragraph in the quotation, other than the first paragraph,
> begins with a sentence that does not open the paragraph in the original,
> the sentence should be preceded by [the three-dot] following the usual
> paragraph indentation."
>
> i) Obviously incomplete phrases enclosed fore and aft with quotation
> marks do not require the three-dot at beginning or end.
>
> Patricia M. Godfrey
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.1/64 - Release Date: 8/4/2005
>
>



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.2/65 - Release Date: 8/7/2005