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Faldage #173592 02/15/08 09:43 PM
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It is often used on Fake World but not per the ellipsis definition. The intent is to convey a pause for emphasis, or more often, de-emphasis. Example:

T: Where are you?
D: Uhmm... You don't want to know.

Aramis #173593 02/15/08 09:50 PM
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Originally Posted By: Aramis
It is often used on Fake World but not per the ellipsis definition. The intent is to convey a pause for emphasis, or more often, de-emphasis. Example:

T: Where are you?
D: Uhmm... You don't want to know.


I think Faldo's point applies here.. this isn't, by definition, an ellipsis, but something else entire.

but what should we call it then, F?!

-ron (not so) o.

tsuwm #173595 02/16/08 12:17 AM
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I usually call it dot-dot-dot, but that's a little inelegant.

Faldage #173597 02/16/08 12:20 AM
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I had an Aunt Dot, but she wasn't married to Bob.

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Céline used to call them his three little dots, but, of course, he said it in French. Les fameux points de suspension (link)


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Good heavens--I didn't even notice till the third line that that link was in French! And once again I think with gratitude of Dr. Bill, who told me about the Find-on-this-page trick: ... notamment par l'utilisation de phrases courtes, très souvent exclamatives, séparées par trois points de suspension. (Notably {his style} for using short phrases, very often exclamatives, separated by three ... dots.) {From his 1936 novel Mort à crédit.}

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Oh,Jackie, that's serious. Time is near when you will find yourself thinking in French one morning and next your husband coming into the room with café - croissant.

Quote:
Céline used to call them his three little dots, but, of course, he said it in French. Les fameux points de suspension (link)


I don't even know if we have a word for 'puntje puntje puntje'.
I was trying to find out but only found blogs in which the dots were used in a hilarious way. Sorry I can't transmit, as it was very funny.

Voyage au bout de la nuit, very impressive.

Last edited by BranShea; 02/16/08 05:17 PM.
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If you can find it check out "Audible Punctuation" by Victor Borge.

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Voyage au bout de la nuit

Two quick thoughts.

1. I was trying to find where Céline refers to his "three little dots". I'm sure he picked this up from criticism of his pre-war novels (Death on the Installment Plan and Voyage to the End of the Night), but I can't find it. (I had thought it was in his final novel, Rigadoon, but I don't see it in the first couple of chapters.)

2. Cf. au bout de la nuit and cul de sac. English butt as a euphemism for ass / arse. Is English buttock a diminutive of butt, as hillock is of hill, or something else? In English proper names -cock is a diminutive suffix: e.g., Hitchcock.


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Yeh...but...what the 'hill' the second thought 's got to do with the subject?

Zed :
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If you can find it check out "Audible Punctuation" by Victor Borge.


Do you think I would find the Dutch word for the three-dot thing
( sorry, suspense dots ) in an English book?
Sorrry, I think I'm making a mess of this.

Last edited by BranShea; 02/16/08 06:40 PM.
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