Dot dot dot

[Lal Zimman]

Dave Robertson wrote:
> I searched the archive and did not find this expression.  Most North
> American speakers of English use this term in practice for what we
> overeducated eggheads call ellipsis/ellipses.  Plenty of Google hits.

I don't think they are exact synonyms, though. For example, if I were
writing about someone's overuse of "..." in writing, I would talk about
their ellipses, but in conversation saying something like "And then she
was like, 'Well dot-dot-dot' and didn't even finish," doesn't work if
you replace "dot-dot-dot" with "ellipsis". "Ellipsis" is the name of the
device and "dot-dot-dot" is the verbal version of the device itself.
(Though clearly there is overlap here as "dot-dot-dot" can be and is
used as the name of the device as well.)


-Lal