Two days ago I asked, “Can anyone tell me how to end a sentence after an ellipsis? Four dots? It looks so unsettled…so 
unfinished.” Knowing that the crowd here must be hell-bent disturbed by that open question, I hereby serve up the answer. According to the Modern Language Association’s Handbook:
When the ellipsis coincides with the end of your sentence, use three periods with a space before each following a sentence period–that is, four periods, with no space before the first or after the last.
Clear as mud.
The real question, put to me succinctly, is: Why the hell would anyone end a sentence with an ellipsis?
Not sure how to respond to that…(.)
Advertisements
I use a lot of ellipsises….
…me too.
I should have thought that the point of an ellipsis is to suggest an open-ended, unfinished thought in process. So the period suggests a person in denial, ambivalent about whether there will be more to say, or the saying is finished. Or a person who assumes that the rules of punctuation require completed sentences–never partial. Never without a subject and predicate. Never using a preposition to end a sentence with… If I wrote with punctuational honesty, every phrase would begin and end with an ellipsis. It would look ugly, but portray accurately our Hericlitean fate in expression…
Dr. Freud would be pleased with your observation. I would like to comment further, but it’s morning and the stables need cleaning….
i only punctuate with ellipses (sp? pl?) these days….. so lazy. am in florida trying to find you the perfect t-shirt for your trip…..
…lazy good…florida warm…
I end a sentence that way when I am saying or intimating something that I don’t actually want to put in writing but know the person I am writing to will understand is meant to follow. Hence the unsettling feeling (speaking only for myself of course).
Thanks for stopping in, Petrushka. “Hence the unsettling feeling….” I like that. I appreciate your comment.