GPFontaine Dot Dot Dot

NOTE: This article is a formatting nightmare and ugly as hell to look at. Someone please fix it. Also Ross, using ellipses as a trail-off to an incomplete thought or to indicate thinking is a fairly well accepted usage. If Stephen King can do it, the rest of us can too.

GPFontaine Has a Problem

It's name is the GPFontaine Dot Dot Dot

What is this all about?

GPFontaine Explains the Dot Dot Dot

... I type that all the time... I don't know why... I guess it is what I type when I am thinking. It is a visual indication that I am probably going "uh" or "um". You get it... don't you? I'll admit that it may be stupid, but I doubt I can stop doing it.

GPFontaine is an idiot, what does the Dot Dot Dot really mean?

• The actual name for three periods in a row is an Ellipsis.

Definition/Description

• ...

No joke, thats it. Here it is explained a bit more:

• A row of three periods indicating an intentional omission. This is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or in common spoken terms, dot-dot-dot. An ellipsis is sometimes used to represent a pause in speech, an incomplete thought or a fading to silence at the end of a sentence. In some cases, particularly interviews in family publications, an ellipsis is used to censor language deemed inappropriate.

Details

• There is a bit more to it than a simple description. Wikipedia has a great writeup that explains it well.
• Ellipsis at Wikipedia

So why is GPFontaine wrong for using this?

It is not technically wrong to use many ellipses. But technically wrong doesn't mean it isn't considered to be stupid. In GPFontaine's case the ellipsis is a way to avoid pauses while typing or writing. The three periods are quick to type but give enough time for the thought being typed to be completed in his mind. Most would say that unless this is his form of note taking, it is a sloppy method of writing.

So why can't GPFontaine stop doing it?

Who better to explain other than the source? Fuck you is why. I would rather people read my real thoughts with a ... every other word than to have to structure my mind into what others expect. I can type damn fast and fuck you Gemstone III and World of Warcraft for making it so. So I type fast, and on occasion I catch up to the end of my thought and don't really want to stop moving my hands. I suppose I could go back and edit it all out like I do in my work emails. But you wouldn't like my work emails. They make me look like a jerk. Oh wait... (that one was used for silence trailing off at the end. Get it? I pretended like I look like a jerk outside of this site, but you think I am a jerk here too. It is nearly ingenious. If only I wasn't the one who was the jerk it would be perfect!

I hate you.