Ellipsis - Roland Stroud

ELLIPSIS WITH COMPUTERS
1.1.17 Another problem that arises in spacing the dots, when using computers (and who does not
today?), is that spaced dots may unexpectedly “wrap” at the end of a line, breaking between two
of the dots:
The man picked up his change and counted it. “Say, buddy,” he asked the waiter, “Did . .
. you make a mistake?”
This problem is avoidable with most high-end word processors, which allow the writer to enter
a special space that will not break. In WordPerfect® it is Ctrl-Space. In Microsoft® Word97 it
is Ctrl-Shift-Space. In WordPerfect® (DOS version) it is Home-Space. It is permissible to have
‘. . .’ at the end or start of a line if it happens to fall there.
Computers can produce (in some font sets, anyway) a special three-dot character ‘…’ (no
spaces) when the keyboard operator strikes a combination of keys:
• ANSI character number 133: on numeric keypad with Alt-0133
• In Microsoft® Word97: Alt-Shift-Period
• In WordPerfect®: Ctrl-W 4,56
However, this character is not appropriate for representing ellipsis, since it consists of three dots
with no spaces and in some fonts produces three exceedingly tiny dots.
Microsoft® Word97, under Tools/AutoCorrect, has a list of replacement “corrections” that the
program makes when certain key combinations are struck. Typing three dots in succession (no
spaces) will trigger an automatic replacement by the tiny ellipsis character. Consequently, users
should consider deleting this “correction” from AutoCorrect. (It can be restored at any time by
re-entering three dots in AutoCorrect and inserting the ellipsis symbol from the Insert/Symbol
menu.)
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
1.1.18 Ellipsis in two successive paragraphs. A paragraph may end with ellipsis and the next
paragraph begin with ellipsis. In that case, the last sentence of the first paragraph follows the
principles discussed above, and the next paragraph is introduced by the usual first-line
indentation, followed by a group of three dots with spaces and a space after the group.
1.1.19 Ellipsis in poetry. Sometimes it is convenient to leave out one or more lines of a poem that is
being quoted. Omission is signaled by placing a line of spaced dots across the entire line length.
The line of dots can stand for any number of lines in succession — e.g., deletion of lines 5, 6,
7 would require just one line of dots. Deletion of line 14 would require another line of dots.
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