Ellipses that drive us dotty
They鈥檙e enough to make a grown publisher cry: those little dots that indicate material omitted from quoted text.
They鈥檙e called ellipses. In an editorial meeting recently, I was asked to review the rules that govern them to recommend a style for our new project.
Curling up with Big Orange back in my office, I was reminded that the Chicago Manual of Style offers no fewer than three sets of rules for ellipses.
The first and simplest is 鈥渢he three-dot method,鈥� appropriate 鈥渇or most general works and many scholarly ones.鈥� It uses (surprise!) three dots to mark omissions, whether of an entire sentence or just some material within. 鈥淔or fidelity to the original and ease of reading,鈥� Chicago notes, a question mark or other punctuation may be tucked in as well.
Chicago doesn鈥檛 mention this, but the three-dot method is also sometimes used by writers ... here and there ... who intend to indicate meaningful ... pauses. They tend, though, to suggest instead a stream of consciousness that suffers occasional dry spells.
The 鈥渢hree-or-four-dot method,鈥� which Chicago calls 鈥渁ppropriate for poetry and most scholarly works other than legal writings or textual commentary,鈥� involves three dots for omissions within a sentence and four for omissions of whole sentences.
Finally, there is the 鈥渞igorous method,鈥� a sort of 鈥渢hree-or-four-dots plus.鈥� It includes, among other things, additional fastidiousness about capitalization 鈥� any change from the original printed source must be noted with brackets. Chicago鈥檚 discussion of 鈥渢he rigorous method鈥� also includes, in my edition, three paragraphs on 鈥淧lacement of first dot.鈥� The rigorous method is clearly not for the faint of heart.
I can see I have some noodling to do before I get back to my client on this one.
Meanwhile, inquiring minds want to know, what鈥檚 the connection between ellipsis and ellipse?听
The common ancestor for the words for both the editor鈥檚 little string of dots and the geometer鈥檚 almost-circle 鈥� the shape of the orbits of planets 鈥� turns out to be the Greek verb elleipein, meaning 鈥渢o fall short or leave out.鈥� The related noun means 鈥渁 deficit.鈥�
In geometry, an ellipse is 鈥渁 shape similar to a circle but longer than it is wide.鈥� That鈥檚 鈥檚 quick online definition, anyway.听
Perhaps it was written by an English major and not a ? Another way to put it would be to say an ellipse is like a circle but with two 鈥渃enters鈥� rather than one.
But why the deficit metaphor? Ellipses are seen as sections (slices) of cones, and they got their name, according to the , 鈥渂ecause the conic section of the cutting plane makes a smaller angle with the base than does the side of the cone, hence, a 鈥榝alling short.鈥� 鈥�
My etymological curiosity now satisfied, I鈥檒l return to figuring out how to deal with all those dots. Chicago certainly doesn鈥檛 fall short on options.
