Ellipses...

I love, love, love…to use ellipses when I write.  So much so that people comment on it.  “You and your dot, dot, dot…” they say.  To which I reply, “Ellipses”.  To which they occasionally reply “Huh?”, because they don’t know what it’s called...which amuses me.  They just call it the dot, dot, dot. 

But the fact is…they are incredibly useful.  You can trail off a sentence or really make it obvious that your sentence has a pause.  I think they hide in my speech patterns and thus have to come out in my writing.  My pauses are such that a comma is just not adequate.  I require dots.  Maybe I also just like the way they look.  I do like dots.  I’m wearing polka dots as I write this.  I also think that they convey the fact that when I wrote that sentence…I truly paused to compose the next part of it.  I didn’t just need to separate the two thoughts, I really needed to think about it and compose that next thought.  I needed to emphasize it.  Ellipses convey this.

I’m not sure where I picked up this habit or when it started.  I do know it’s been many years and that I’ve had many people comment on it over the years.  I’ll admit it’s possible that I OVER use them.  Honestly though, why not?  I mean, really…can you truly over use them?  I say if something is useful – you should use it.  So I do.  I think it makes my writing sound more like me.  It makes it more personal.

A long time ago, when I first tried my hand at writing for other people, the marketing director in charge of the publication read my article and smiled and said “You write just like you speak.”  I was confused at first.  I guess I thought that everyone wrote like they spoke.  But apparently this is not the case.  Apparently many people are unable to put their words on paper and keep their personality in it.  I didn’t know this was a talent.  So yay me for having a hidden talent!  Or, at the very least yay me for having what some consider a hidden talent.

My point is…the ellipses help me put my way of speaking onto paper in a way that the comma simply cannot.  Of course, I mean no disrespect to the comma.  On the contrary, I find commas quite useful.  I use them all the time.  They just do not add the dramatic flair that I seek with my ellipses.

Not that I see them all as DUN DUN DUN…but sometimes I do…and really, writing “dun dun dun” is just over dramatic.