Ellipsis and rules of spelling

[ER <ression@hotmail.com>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "psychic_serpent 
<psychic_serpent at y...>" <psychic_serpent at y...> wrote:

>One never puts a space before the dots. They are supposed to follow 
directly after the end of the previous word.

I don't understand that either! Since the dots are replacing the 
missing words, it seems logical that they should occupy the same 
position and be separated by a space. And it looks so damn ugly!

I do (now) see the logic of the four dots - I hadn't considered the 
possibility that what was originally a separate sentence could be 
read as part of the previous one. But, I don't think I've ever seen 
it in print.

I don't even want to think about what happens when one is using 
ellipsis in quoting a sentence that originally contained ellipses - 
do we go to five dots, six dots, seven dots, more? :))


>A period is only ever a full stop.

Not always, e.g.    ;)


ER