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This? Is not grammatically correct.
Neither? Is this.
It makes prose? Sound whiny and ineffective.
When I do this? Somebody please kick my butt.
Almost every time I see an ellipsis... a comma would be better.
Commas indicate natural pauses in speaking... as this seems to be trying to do.
If it's meant to add emphasis... it's not working.
When I do this... somebody please kick my butt.
Comma splices are another one, each of these should be a sentence, it drives me crazy when I have to read it, I never know if the writer has a point in mind, in fact I usually start to figure they don't, I'm probably guilty of all three of these too sometimes, maybe I should have been a grade-school English teacher, this kind of thing really jumps out at me, when I do this somebody please kick my butt.
I feel better now.
Neither? Is this.
It makes prose? Sound whiny and ineffective.
When I do this? Somebody please kick my butt.
Almost every time I see an ellipsis... a comma would be better.
Commas indicate natural pauses in speaking... as this seems to be trying to do.
If it's meant to add emphasis... it's not working.
When I do this... somebody please kick my butt.
Comma splices are another one, each of these should be a sentence, it drives me crazy when I have to read it, I never know if the writer has a point in mind, in fact I usually start to figure they don't, I'm probably guilty of all three of these too sometimes, maybe I should have been a grade-school English teacher, this kind of thing really jumps out at me, when I do this somebody please kick my butt.
I feel better now.
no subject
A bracer? Do you mean you put square brackets around ellipses in quoted material? I definitely do that. I'm almost a little peeved that it seems to be optional rather than required. It makes the point that I'm the one who omitted the missing words, not the original speaker.
no subject
1. As commas, parenthetically. When you want to add information to the middle of a sentence -- like this -- you can use dashes. Conveniently, this also works at the end of a sentence -- like so.
2. As semicolons, more or less indiscriminately. There are times when you want to stick two sentences together without implying any particular relationship -- dashes work just fine for this. Cases in which I would prefer a dash to a semicolon do not spring readily to mind; however, this does not mean they don't exist.
3. In dialogue or speech-like writing, to indicate a break. When one thought is interrupted by another, dashes can be apropri-- appropra-- how do you spell appropriate?
I could get into em-dashes and en-dashes and hyphens and the difference between them, but in ASCII it will only hurt.
no subject
no subject
3 was the only usage I was sure of. :-)
no subject
It's embarrassing.