In...Defense...of...using...Ellipses...

Okay, so I wasn't going to give you a blog post today, loyal readers, but then The Wife went and complained about my use of ellipses. Now, since I fear my wife and a life of starvation without her income, I'm not going to go after her. Rather, I would like to offer a short explanation of why I love using ellipses. Call it the second obligatory fluff piece.

First, as you may or may not have noticed, I end the title of every blog post (except the first) with ellipses. Why do I do this? Well, I do it because I consider the title to be the beginning of a thought that is interrupted and continued below in the actual post. The use of the ellipses is thus meant to alert you to the continuation of vital material in the post below. Is this necessary, since you can clearly see the text below? No, probably not. But, and this is my second point, it's my blog and I'll do whatever I feel like. This includes using ellipses.

So what is The Wife's problem with my use of this symbol? I'm not really sure. My guess is that it is her inner type-A grammar psycho seeking release. However, as I just mentioned, it's my blog and I'll do whatever I feel like. Thus, I no longer feel the need to be constrained by repressive grammar rules? If I wish to write an entire post using every punctuation symbol in completely random and illogical fashion! I will? The unfortunate losers in this would be you? the readers! While I can,t expect you to have patience with a post written in such a way? it is meant solely as a rebuttal to the argument that I'm too free with my ellipses, It just goes to show that my wife hates freedom and is a godless commie!

Okay, so annoying exercise in suspending punctuation rules in a petty attempt to annoy the Wife aside, I find ellipses to be very useful tools. In many situations, they can allow a writer to leave the interpretation of a statement open to the reader. Toss some ellipses in the middle or on the end of a sentence and the reader can draw whatever conclusion they wish. For example: "The Wife is not really a godless commie, she's a ..." Now, depending upon your viewpoint, you can conclude that she is pretty much anything. I won't tell you how I would finish this, because, like I said, I would like to be able to eat in the future.