a world full of wishywashers

Chickadees, the abuse of the ellipses has become an epidemic of grammatical proportions. No one declares anything anymore, they just.... suggest.... or think...... or hint.... Statements themselves are being distorted into these half-thoughts: "That was an excellent movie...." Where is the other half?? When does the other shoe drop? But what? Because i assume there's a 'but' since the ellipses indicate another thought closes out this first thought. No? No but? You just thought it was an excellent movie? Well then say so. Look, i'll show you how: "That was an excellent movie." You only have to hit the . button once, so you see, it actually saves you time and effort. Facebook is the official festering breeding ground for ellipsabuse. "Finished my essay...." "Heading to the deli...." "Happy Veterans Day...." No one wants to be definitive anymore; status after status is hemmed and hawed and everyone just keeps trailing off...................................................................................................................................................................

If nothing closes out the thoughts, we're all just an endless, low buzzing sound of vague incompleteness, hesitating at the brink of complete ideas. (i have a friend, we'll call her Ryn Losten, who is oft frustrated by Canadians' tendency to bend their voices up? At the end of every sentence? So that everything is a question? "Just say it!" Ryn Losten wants to roar. Or at least, she did that one time at the Canadian guy on my tv. This is nearly equal to my feelings about people who always ellipsize their statements. i oft roar at my computer and text messages.)

Let's get official: ellipses are used to indicate omission from a quote. Por ejemplo, the best-known portion of the famous poem on the Lady Liberty's monument:

Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore./Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(Quick pause to consider how well or poorly our nation represents that sentiment. (Hi Arizona!))

If we want to truncate that quote, ellipses would be used to remove non-essentials and we could still express the fundamentals thusly: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...send these...to me, I lift my lamp." Orrrr we could do something snarky like this: "Send these, the homeless...to...the...door!" but that would be a dishonest use of the ellipses and the quote. (See: any reality show ever)

Ellipses also have a less technical usage, and this is the part that gets egregiously abused. Talking points from Grammar Girl:

"A number of style guides say that ellipses can be used to indicate a pause or falter in dialog, the passage of time, an unfinished list, or that a speaker has trailed off in the middle of a sentence or left something unsaid. For example, The Chicago Manual of Style states, “Ellipsis points suggest faltering or fragmented speech accompanied by confusion, insecurity, distress, or uncertainty.” The Manual contrasts ellipses with dashes, which it states should be reserved for more confident and decisive pauses. ...Use ellipses sparingly to indicate hesitation or faltering speech or thoughts."

Please, fellow speakers-of-English, let's not dilute the language further than it already has been. Don't be afraid of what you're saying. And if you're using the ellipses to shyly invite a response, which i believe is one reason many apply it so generously, then buck up, confidently assert your place in the conversation, and alter your wording accordingly. "I'm wondering what your schedule is...." is passive and a bit off-putting. Just ask me what my schedule is, or i will start responding to the ellipses statement for what it is: "i'm sorry that the mystery of my schedule is giving you faltering thoughts and causing you hesitation." And then we will both be annoyed, which is unfortunate.

i leave you now with a scene from classic (drug-addled) literature. It's not exactly tailored to this subject, but it is suited to the general idea of saying that which we mean:

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

`Exactly so,' said Alice.

`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

`It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.