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Punctuation marks have distinct meanings, purposes, and intentions. Two marks in particular – dashes and ellipses – are often used in place of commas, but shouldn't be. Writers may think it looks relaxed or breezy to replace commas with these other punctuation marks, but to most people, when used in this way, they just look like mistakes.
Dashes aren’t commas:
No need to use dashes when setting off a dependent clause. His niece, Daisy, is making her debut on the operatic stage in "Pagliacci." Not His niece – Daisy – is making her debut on the operatic stage in "Pagliacci."
Neither are ellipses:
Use commas in a series. The “swag” bag included perfume, truffles, Vogue, and a gift certificate. Not The “swag” bag included perfume… truffles… Vogue… and a gift certificate.
Ellipses are used to indicate the deletion of one or more words: We the People of the United States. . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
An ellipsis can also be used to create a trailing-off effect at the end of a sentence: This is a fine mess. . . . Why don't you do something about it? *
* Here's where it gets tricky. Note there are four dots in this example. The first dot is a period; the next three are the ellipsis.
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February 18, 2009
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Why "Word Wise"?
- When I started to e-mail out a weekly writing tip to my Chicago colleagues at Edelman in 2002, little did I know how quickly how many people outside my office would start to request it. But word spread, as word is wont to do, and in 2006 the e-mail evolved into this blog. The tips, which are about grammar, usage and style, have a dual purpose – to remind my colleagues in PR of the power of the written word and, more generally, to support and perpetuate clear, concise, creative, honest, lively, stylish, compelling writing everywhere. In 2009 I started to add commentary about and links to stories and other blog posts related to the media, marketing, writing and, sometimes, just interesting stuff. For some reason, I also started Twittering (at SantowDan).
And it's spacedotspacedotspacedotspace( . . . ), too. "..." is inaccurate, and ".." is just wrong.
Posted by: Tasha | February 18, 2009 at 07:00 PM
Oh, you bastard! I usually get to read your blog and feel so smug and self-righteous. Today, you busted me. I use the ellipsis way too much... but it makes my writing look...damn. You got me. Seriously, thanks for pointing this out. I'll do better.
Posted by: Michael | February 18, 2009 at 07:52 PM
Actually it‘s “…“, not “...“ and not “. . .“.
Posted by: Adrian Lang | February 26, 2009 at 11:24 AM
In AP Style, an ellipsis is comprised of three dots without spaces in between them, bounded by spaces. So "Anthony commented on the blog post. ... His comments were irrelevant." Other styles such as Chicago and MLA include the spaces in between each , as outlined in this post above.
Posted by: Anthony | March 02, 2009 at 10:50 AM