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MaxE
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13 Aug 2022, 10:39 am

The Ellipsis is Widening the Gap Between Millennials and Boomers. Here’s Why

Oddly enough, I have always found this use of ellipses infuriating (and I'm a Boomer). I had a coworker who seemed to end every sentence this way and it really got on my nerves.


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brickedbrain
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18 Aug 2022, 11:14 pm

My parents do this all the time when responding over text.

Like, I literally cannot decipher what tone is intended. I always associate ellipses with being upset or disappointed, and it's contributed to more than a few misunderstandings.



magz
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19 Aug 2022, 3:02 am

Uhm... ;)

In my native language, ellipses seem more common than in English, so if I overuse them, this is the most likely cause.
Polish poetry from 19th century uses tons of ellipses. They are just a part of regular written language here.
Routinely, pause (—) in English is translated to ellipse in Polish, as pause has different uses here and not replacing it would be confusing.

Raise of ellipse in English may have happened simply because it's easier to type than a pause.


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MaxE
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19 Aug 2022, 5:09 am

magz wrote:
Uhm... ;)
Raise of ellipse in English may have happened simply because it's easier to type than a pause.

ALT-0151


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19 Aug 2022, 8:27 am

MaxE wrote:
magz wrote:
Raise of ellipse in English may have happened simply because it's easier to type than a pause.
ALT-0151
It is always annoying when an autocorrect/autofill feature replaces my "--" with its "—".  If I want "—", I will use "—".


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21 Aug 2022, 2:53 am

Huh. None of my Boomers use a bunch of ellipses. The only people I've seen using them are teenagers.



lostonearth35
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07 Oct 2022, 4:01 pm

I remember as a little girl in the late 70s-early 90s pretending to have a phone conversation by holding my hand to my ear the way modern phones are now held because that's how I held a phone receiver.

I remember reading an article in the paper in the 90s about how clueless kids were because they knew nothing about playing marbles but were busy pretending to be the characters in Mortal Kombat. And yet my brother and I had marbles and every summer I would see bags of marbles for sale, how strange.



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03 Nov 2022, 4:20 pm

I played marbles alongside video games in the 1990's and early noughties. The two don't have to be separate activities.



IsabellaLinton
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03 Nov 2022, 6:25 pm

I loved marbles and had quite a few, but I never knew how to play games with them.
I just loved staring into the colours, and rolling them on my hand.

I remember noticing that there would always be a straight line between any two marbles.
I guess that was the start of my interest in mathematics and philosophy.

Ellipses bother me.
I've never used them very much.
When I read them I think the person is annoyed with me.


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blitzkrieg
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14 Nov 2022, 11:47 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I loved marbles and had quite a few, but I never knew how to play games with them.
I just loved staring into the colours, and rolling them on my hand.

I remember noticing that there would always be a straight line between any two marbles.
I guess that was the start of my interest in mathematics and philosophy.

Ellipses bother me.
I've never used them very much.
When I read them I think the person is annoyed with me.


I used to love the goldish marbles & the sparkly ones, as well as the traditional clear ones that had a pattern through them.



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15 Nov 2022, 12:26 am

I enjoyed looking at the marbles my family had when I was a kid. There was one really big one that I think was what's called a "shooter," and a variety of colors in the smaller ones, such as the clear ones with the bit of twisty color inside like blitzkrieg mentioned. I liked to name things, and I think I named the marbles once and acted out imaginative scenes with them, but I am not sure anymore. I definitely did names and elaborate imagined stories with a set of unique beads I had.

I used to use ellipses a lot, but decided it was an annoying habit. I do still throw them in once in a while if they seem to best fit my meaning. I can never figure out how to write the proper long dash (I tried ALT-0151 just now and nothing happened) and have to just put --, but I don't use that much either as I don't see others using it.


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IsabellaLinton
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15 Nov 2022, 12:36 am

Carpeta wrote:
I enjoyed looking at the marbles my family had when I was a kid. There was one really big one that I think was what's called a "shooter," and a variety of colors in the smaller ones, such as the clear ones with the bit of twisty color inside like blitzkrieg mentioned. I liked to name things, and I think I named the marbles once and acted out imaginative scenes with them, but I am not sure anymore. I definitely did names and elaborate imagined stories with a set of unique beads I had.


I loved the swishy ones!! ^

When I was seven I got invited to a birthday party for a boy named Kevin. My mother bought me a bag of marbles to give him. They came in a yellow vinyl pouch with a drawstring and I loved them so much I didn't want to give them away. I ended up being really rude to Kevin because I was jealous that he got my marbles ... (note the ellipsis ...)


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blitzkrieg
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15 Nov 2022, 11:05 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
Carpeta wrote:
I enjoyed looking at the marbles my family had when I was a kid. There was one really big one that I think was what's called a "shooter," and a variety of colors in the smaller ones, such as the clear ones with the bit of twisty color inside like blitzkrieg mentioned. I liked to name things, and I think I named the marbles once and acted out imaginative scenes with them, but I am not sure anymore. I definitely did names and elaborate imagined stories with a set of unique beads I had.


I loved the swishy ones!! ^

When I was seven I got invited to a birthday party for a boy named Kevin. My mother bought me a bag of marbles to give him. They came in a yellow vinyl pouch with a drawstring and I loved them so much I didn't want to give them away. I ended up being really rude to Kevin because I was jealous that he got my marbles ... (note the ellipsis ...)


Poor Kevin. :lol:



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10 Dec 2022, 8:27 pm

I'm a couple of decades too young to be a boomer, and I use ellipses a fair amount....

... which may be because I read a lot of old books growing up. Kind of a "I leave the rest to your imagination" or "fill in the punchline yourself" thing. I wonder if the ever-growing popularity of manga in the West has driven this change in usage? Not sure what the symbol used in the original is, but translations use a silent speech bubble with just "..." in it to indicate a pause in the conversation, often implying some supressed reaction.


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DanielW
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10 Dec 2022, 8:32 pm

I'm no boomer and I know how to correctly use an ellipses. Its sad so many others can't. When used correctly it adds contextual information than can be useful to know...or to disregard.



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10 Jan 2023, 2:34 am

I know someone in their 30s who puts ellipses into every single post. Completely unnecessary to write like that.

My parents are Boomers and they don't use ellipses. Rather, my mum had trouble with putting spaces after commas. I badgered her about it and now she does it. Now my twin sister does the same thing. She's much more sensitive about her writing. I'll have to be subtle...