Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. The three dots extend from the end of the phrase like a ledge into the surrounding silence. They ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. The punctuation mark of the ellipsis is perhaps the most unusual mark in the English language, for ...

As a punctuation mark, ellipsis refers to the dots which indicate a deliberate omission of one or more words ( or other elements) in a sentence. The writer uses it to save certain details usually ...

A Cambridge academic claims to have found the first use of a ‘brilliant innovation’ that has endured as a mark of incomplete speech One of the earliest examples of the ellipsis, that tantalising piece ...

An ellipsis is three dots used when leaving out a word or a phrase. Three dots: no more, no less and there are different ways to use it. ‘The space station has a cracked window… dangerous.’ Notice I ...

This is an excerpt from Post copy editor Bill Walsh’s monthly Grammar Geekery chat, which takes place the first Tuesday of each month. Chatters wanted to explore the many punctuation marks that ...