Very funny.
There I go with the periods...anyone know if that particular punctuation (the three periods) has an official name?
of course.. it's called an
ellipsis
pl. ellipses
1a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding. b. An example of such omission. 2. A mark or series of marks (... or ***, for example) used in writing or printing to indicate an omission, especially of letters or words.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin ellpsis, from Greek elleipsis, from elleipein, to fall short. [AHD4]
there's actually an ANSI character "…" which is *not three separate periods, but is rather printed as a group. [note the difference in spacing]
it is also a recognized practice to use just two dots to show such omission (thus three at the end of a sentence to show following omission from a para.) the OED, e.g., uses this convention in its citations.
