Wednesday, June 11, 2008

ellipsis, comma; toward vs towards

The use of ellipsis, plural is ellipses.

An ellipsis is a series of three points with spaces between them (. . .) inserted into a quotation to indicate the omission of material from the original quotation.

The use of an ellipsis in the following sentence is, therefore, not appropriate:
“Chona Chikadora goes live on S-Files… complete with bonggang outfit and mas-bonggang news.”

Let us never use an ellipsis to replace a comma.

Ellipses and commas are different and not interchangeable. They are hardly ever used in standard written English. A comma joins two clauses together with a common theme, whereas an ellipsis is really a way of connecting two underconnected thoughts.

Let us not use the ellipsis in our website except to signify missing text.

Toward vs towards

Some critics have tried to discern a semantic distinction between toward and towards, but the difference is entirely dialectal. Toward is more common in American English; towards is the predominant form in British English.

Our websites have been using American English, let us, therefore, use toward, not towards, in our sentences as a matter of style.

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