The Generation X’s ‘casual use of ellipses‘ is something I am… unapologetically guilty of.
It’s not just about leaving something unsaid… the pause often feels better if it’s longer than a comma… and yet a colon or semicolon just doesn’t work as well.
A single sentence sometimes flows better than two… even though there might be a second idea that makes the sentence too disjointed or too long to read in just one go.
And sometimes the stream of consciousness flow of ideas invites the use of an ellipses, a thoughtful, momentary pause, to help the idea along without another kind of punctuation getting in the way… while still keeping the stream flowing despite a change in sentence tense.
And if you are a generation that thinks us old, and wants to tease us about our archaic use of punctuation, there is another Generation X trait that I happen to hold in situations just like this… I don’t care. If you don’t like it… you don’t have to read what I write. Don’t worry… I won’t be offended.
Oh, and for those of you that actually don’t care about how I use ellipses, I do apologize for my overuse of it above. It doesn’t always have to be used.
