The ominous ellipsis
I present to you a one-word modern horror story:
hey ...
What does the ominous pause mean - are you about to get dumped? Is the bank foreclosing on the family farm? Are you being investigated by the ATO about the $45 worth of fradulent office supplies you put in as a tax write-off? A multiverse of hellish possibilities erupts around the ellipsis.
Pound for pound, this grammatical symbol is unmatched when it comes to creating drama. If you’re going to wrangle with her, there are a few common-sense rules when it comes to using an ellipsis.
Firstly, when using an ellipsis, ask yourself: am I trying to be an extremely dramatic bitch today?
Secondly, if yes, make sure you put a space before and after the ellipsis ... like this*.
Thirdly, scan your writing and check you're not using too many ellipses. This is a rule for me as I sprinkle dot dot dots liberally onto my writing like parmesan on pasta. Unlike parmesan on pasta, you can have too many ellipses.
Fourthly, did you know you can use an ellipsis for a purpose other than creating big drama? Using an ellipsis in a quote will indicate you've left something out on purpose.
Fifthly, (feels like I should not say fifthly but there’s no red line under it so onwards!) if your sentence ends after the ellipsis, whack a full stop in there like normal. Like this …. Or this … . You may feel these look weird and you’d be right! There are vibrant forums of nerds debating how to use a four-dot ellipsis and they’re all confused and usage seems to be based entirely on personal taste and reference to arcane old rules. Best to entirely avoid this situation by not ending sentences after ellipses.
*This is the style recommendation from the AP Stylebook. You can follow whatever style guide you fancy as long as you’re consistent, but I find the AP is generally sensible. Like, the whackos at the Chicago Manual of Style suggest putting a space between every full stop . . . like this. That, to me, just looks awful. REVOLTING. The grammatical equivalent of hipster jeans or white leather couches. Apparently old Victorian-era typewriters used to have something called a thin space, a space between symbols that’s thinner than the space we use today and meant for this exact situation. So the original CMS ellipsis may have looked chicer than the modern representation.
TL;DR? Ellipses in the modern context are ominous but can also be used functionally to convey that words or whole sentences have been omitted on purpose.