In the last grammar post, I talked about the different dashes – or at least the hyphen, en dash, and em dash. You may have noticed that some uses for the dash overlap with the ellipsis. Here is a brief guide that can help you learn when to use the ellipsis or the dash.
Image credit: Zebra Pen 005 by J Wynia
Ellipsis ( … )
- Ellipsis are often used to denote a thought or sentence that is incomplete or trails off.
- “Don’t go in there, it’s…” he paused to gather his thoughts, “…weird.”
- Use ellipsis when quotes are being shortened or when material is being omitted from the passage.
- The absurdity of the situation makes me ponder Hamlet’s query “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer . . . outrageous fortune.”
- Use a 4-period ellipsis (also called a closed ellipsis) when ending with a partial quote.
- Original sentence: I have a weathered copy of that photograph in my own personal collection.
- Partial quotation using a closed ellipsis: I have a weathered copy of that photograph ....
Dash ( – )
- Dashes are often used in dialogue writing to denote that someone has been cut off.
- “Don’t go in there it’s–” The door slammed in his face before he could warn them.
- As mentioned in the last post, dashes are used to interrupt the sentence. They can be used to start lists that have commas in them, used to illustrate, restate or summarize a sentence, or even change tone.
- Three people in my group–Tom, Rodger, and Sally–refused to participate in critiques.
- One person of the group will only wear blue–my mother.
- Tom did not wish to participate because his feelings for Sally–he is madly in love with her–will never change.
- Dashes are used to set off appositives that contain commas. Appositives are noun or noun phrase that immediately follows a noun or pronoun.
- Learning the mechanics–the complex, detailed structural components–of the English language is very difficult because the rules are often so inconsistent
Writing dialogue
A Simple Rule for Writing Dialogue: Use the ellipsis for when a sentence trails off and use the dash when a sentence gets cut off.
Ellipsis and dashes add great variety to a piece, but like most grammar, needs to be used properly. Ellipsis and dashes are best used sparingly.