Brief Origin of the Modern Ellipsis
The word originates in the Greek ἔλλειψις, meaning “falling short, defect,” but, the ellipsis also becomes associated with omission fairly early in its history. The ellipsis is considered by many as the most unusual mark in the English language because it performs the exact opposite of what punctuation marks are designed to convey: meaning between ideas.
Just where did the ellipsis come from, and why is it so unusual? Its history takes us to Anne Toner’s fascinating book, Ellipsis in English Literature: Signs of Omission to explore the earliest print records of the modern ellipsis back to the 16th century
The ellipsis may have served a different function, and was no stranger to English texts before the plays of Shakespeare and Jonson. In medieval manuscripts, we find an interesting editing mark—sometimes called subpuncting or underdotting—was placed under the word or phrase to indicate its removal, particularly when that word or phrase has been copied erroneously.
A study conducted by David Wakelin, A scholar of medieval manuscripts, on how on a sample of 9,000 manuscripts at the Huntington Library. He discovered “crossing out, subpuncting, or erasure” accounted for 25% of the corrections he found. He further notes that subpuncting begins to die out in the early 16th century, and Toner picks up on the rise of the ellipsis in the late 16th century.
Is the ellipses an evolutionary descendant of subpuncting or underdotting? We may never know for sure. Even so, they share a similarity used to omit meaning. But what does it MEEEEAN, [N]omoth?!
Simply put, an ellipsis (plural: ellipses) is a punctuation mark consisting of three dots which indicates an omission, and sometimes, a placeholder. Ellipses save space or less relevant material. This allows the reader to get right to the point without delay or distraction:
It also allows the reader’s imagination to fill in the blank spaces with their own unique perspective. When to use an Ellipses: 1. Use when omitting from a quoted passage.
• Full quotation: "Today, after hours of careful work, Ahavati finished the next lesson in the punctuation workshop, the ellipsis, for nomoth."
• With ellipsis: "Today. . . Ahavati finished the next lesson for the punctuation workshop. . ." Note:
Spacing varies—some editors and writers feel no spaces are warranted before and after an ellipsis, while others do. Subsequently, those such as myself, who use spaces between each dot, do not use spaces before and after the first/last dot. Much depends on your own personal writing style. 2. Deleting the beginning of a sentence.
Begin the opening quotation mark with an ellipsis:
• ". . .Ahavati finished the next lesson in the punctuation workshop, the ellipsis, for nomoth." Note:
If the first word of the quotation mark you are beginning with after the ellipsis begins with a lowercase letter in the quote, capitalizing the first letter of that word in a bracket is warranted. Others omit the ellipsis completely, feeling the bracketed capital letter gets the point across. Again either/or is acceptable depending upon your own personal style. 3. Use to convey hesitation, changes of mood, suspense, or trailing off thought.
•[N]omoth didn’t know. . .he was not sure.
• JohnnyBlaze said, "I. . .really don't. . .understand this." Note how the ellipses is used to indicate a pause or wavering in an otherwise straightforward sentence.
For more examples of how to effectively use an ellipsis in quoted material, I.e.- beginning, middle, and end of sentences, visit The Punctuation Guide
at the below link: https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/ellipses.html
Additional Sources: Ellipsis in English Literature: Signs of Omission to explore the earliest print records of the modern ellipsis back to the 16th century: https://www.amazon.com/Ellipsis-English-Literature-Signs-Omission/dp/1107421322 Are you an ellipsis junkie? https://www.scribendi.com/advice/ellipses_junkie.en.html