punctuation - Spaces for Ellipses



I find some opinions about the rules for ellipses are conflicting. Here are some conflicting issues:


Q1: Are the spaces between the dots in a ellipsis necessary, i.e. dot-space-dot-space-dot?




  • (Yes.) Grammar Girl's article



    . . . for everyday purposes, it's fine to use regular spaces between the ellipsis points. Type period-space-period-space-period. Just make sure your dots don’t end up on two different lines.





  • (No.) Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, on the wiki page



    Bringhurst writes that a full space between each dot is "another Victorian eccentricity. In most contexts, the Chicago ellipsis is much too wide"—he recommends using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (up to one-fifth of an em), or the prefabricated ellipsis character.





  • (No.) My personal habit. I think typing dot-dot-dot is more convenient; though I find it looks better to use the dot-space-dot-space-dot style on this page :)




Q2: Normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text. So, when should the fore space or the aft space disappear?




  • Grammar Girl's article



    Ellipses at the beginning and end of quotations
    Aardvark said, “. . . Squiggly never caught a fish.”

    Ellipses with question marks and exclamation points
    “Where did he go? . . . Why did he go out again?” [Material is removed between the two sentences]
    “Where did he go . . . ? Why did he go out again?” [Material is removed before the first question mark. Note the space between the last ellipsis point and the question mark.]

    Ellipses with commas and semicolons
    “Aardvark went home, . . . and Squiggly decided to meet him later.”
    “Aardvark went home . . . ; Squiggly would meet him later.” [Note the space between the ellipsis and the semicolon.]





  • Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, on the wiki page



    . . . when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows.



    • i … j i-(space)-(ellipsis)-(space)-j, the normal case.

    • k…. k-(ellipsis)-(dot)

    • l…, l l-(ellipsis)-(comma)-(space)-l

    • l, … l l-(comma)-(space)-(ellipsis)-(space)-l

    • m…? m-(ellipsis)-(question mark)

    • n…! n-(ellipsis)-(exclamation mark)





  • Katherine Fry & Rowena Kirton's grammar book: Grammar for Grown-Ups



    . . . The only time there isn't a final space is when the ellipsis comes before a closing quote mark -- then the quote mark comes directly after dot 3, 'like . . .' this, 'not . . . ' this.





How numerous the conflicting rules are! I'm totally confused.


EDIT To state my question more clearly -- I need to write some software manuals in plain ASCII text. Can I just type ellipses choosing any style because there's no strict rule about that?



Answer



You may be governed in your typing by what is most convenient; it's largely irrelevant, because the final decision rests with your publisher. Academic publishers will impose the standards defined in the style manual adopted by your discipline, other publishers will have their own house standards.


And unless you are deliberately employing a non-standard typography because it has some non-standard significance, why should you care? Let the publisher worry about it, that's why he gets the big bucks.


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