There are two situations in which one is likely to use a string of dots, like consecutive periods:
a) You’re quoting someone and want to be explicit about the fact that you’re leaving some words out. Patrick Henry:
b) You wish to indicate a pause, a spacing between words as spoken, or even in the head as thought of…you know what I mean…you’re formulating…let’s call them phrases…and you’re pausing between them like this…
OK, grammarians. The first type is known to me as an ellipsis. Is the same symbol — or what appears to be the same symbol —_as used in the second style also an ellipsis?
Or is it instead a different punctuation sset apart by some distinctions, in much the same way that a hyphen is not the same thing as an em dash?
Here’s what the Morton S. Freeman’s Wordwatcher has to say:
Ellipses (sometimes called “periods of ellipses”) are used as shown in the above example and in your examples. It’s just that in formal writing, one wouldn’t pause so much. In fiction, it happens all the time, and that’s when the ellipses come into play. You’re using them quite rightly.
The em dash - which is larger than a hyphen - can be used parenthetically, but not as an ellipsis. In the previous sentence, I am using it parenthetically.
Not to my knowledge, ratatoskK. Where I have seen square brackets in quotations is where you are putting in things that are implied but not actually present in the original. Example: