I would like to share one of my pet peeves with people who will actually understand: people who don't use ellipses properly! It dirves me absolutely insane, and I'm not sure which is worse - only two........... or dozens?

And of course, the other pet hate is apostrophes in the wrong place - or superfluously! - but that's a whole nother kettle of fishies...

alexis

I'll say it again: Geoff, you naughty man!

I'm with alexis and Silk. Incorrectly used apostrophes and ellipses are annoying!

I thought the rule with ellipses was: three if you removed a part of a sentence, and four if the part that was removed included a period (ie, if you removed the end of one sentence and resumed quoting with the beginning of the next sentence). I never adhere to that rule myself, because for some reason I just like the look of four anyway....(nothing removed there, just a pause for effect!) - but I THINK that's the "rule."

Apostrophes.....North Americans seem to be using all the spare ones that Australia DOESN'T use! Ayers Rock is Ayers Rock, not Ayer's Rock, even though it was named for, um, was it William Ayer? somebody Ayer, anyway. I noticed that all over Oz when I was down there - the apostrophe for possessive names seemed to have completely disappeared. Weird.

I like Silk's example: free kitten's WHAT?!

Them's the ellipses rules, MG, at least the same ones I've always used. Nother thing that drives me crazy is the use of multiple exclamation points and question marks!!! I know people do it for emphasis, but IMHO, more than one is overkill, especially with question marks. Is it more of a question if you use ???

I hear you, nancyk!!!!!!!!!!!

what one of my high school English teachers used to call:

Schoolgirl style!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes - my understanding is of the three/four dots depending context.

One of my big peeves with apostrophes is "CD's on sale." As with the kitten - (un)lucky CD! Who's going to buy him/her? Some say that you're allowed to have an apostrophe after capitals/abbreviations (as in the thread "P's and Q's") - but I say: why?? yes, I think 2x question marks can add emphasis sometimes!

Incorrectly used apostrophes and ellipses are annoying

I am very good with apostrophe's but I must have been absent from class when they discussed ellipses
I just threw them in willy-nilly (right use of willy-nilly?)thinking there were no rules, honest!

thanks mg for filling me in.

My pleasure, wordcrazy (I was familiarly going to call you "wc" but then I suddenly remembered what that stands for in some cultures - not wordcrazy, but water closet!)....

Just to add to the rules about ellipses (or the question about them, more properly): What do y'all know about them coming in the middle of a thought, that you want to divide into two sentences? because I remember seeing square brackets placed around the first letter of the first word after the ellipse, to indicate that it was originally whatever it's not, now (eg, if it was originally a capital, it would be lowercase in the square brackets after an ellipse, and vice-versa). Anyone know?

eg: He went around to the side of the building where the vacant lot is to look for his lost basketball but the flowers were very tall there. He felt certain he had no hope of finding it.

would become ~

He went around to the side of the building where the vacant lot is to look for his lost basketball but....{h}e felt certain he had no hope of finding it.

(sorry, had to use squiggly brackets in case program tried to do something funny with the squares, since they're the convention for markup!) (and sorry for the lame example, too - best I could come up with on the spur of the moment)

MG, that's what I've done in all my essays - the square brackets thing that is - I don't remember where I learned it, and I know that some people don't do it. However, I think it's truer to the original to do that, retaining meaning in your own new-ish sentence at the same time.