Wikipedia sez: (No, wikipedia is NOT a wiccan book of incantations! It's an online freeby encyclopedia just so there's NO question and I don't get banned by Christian schools around the country.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis
The biggest reason I love this quote is that it uses Greek characters! I KNEW there was a reason for a year's study of Greek! It's that feeling you get every 10 years or so when you actually USE the stuff you studied in college!Ellipsis Έλλειψις (plural: ellipses ελλείψεις, Greek for omission) in linguistics refers to any omitted part of speech that is understood, i.e. the omission is intentional. Analogously, in printing and writing, the term refers to the row of three dots (…) or asterisks (* * *) indicating such an intentional omission. This punctuation mark is also called a suspension point or simply dot-dot-dot.
An example is, “She went to … school.” In this sentence, “…” might represent the word “elementary,” or the word “no.” The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it. Omission without indication by an ellipsis is always considered misleading.
An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech or be used at the end of a sentence to indicate a trailing off into silence.
I use the ellipsis a lot... But not to omit... Rather in the latter sense... To indicate at the end of a sentece a trailing off into silence...
I guess I trail off into silence a lot. I don't think I trailed off into silence much when I was in my teens, or twenties. I'll bet I started using ellipses (hmmm, is that the plural?) in my 30s.
In your teens and twenties, you don't trail off into silence much... Leastways I didn't. You're too self-assured. You KNOW what you are saying. You KNOW you have an audience. You KNOW your audience is just waiting with bated breath to discover your every muttering. Why, as brilliant as your ideas are, it's a wonder you can pause to catch your breath!
Maybe that was just MY teens and twenties. Maybe the harsh realities of life hit others sooner than they hit me.
But I KNOW I trail off into silence more now by a quantum measure than I did in those days.
It seems so often that the thought starts light and becomes too heavy to carry any longer... That the certainty of the statement is more about confidence than surety... More a private matter than the trumpets and fanfares of a period.
It's a funny thing that I am more confident today of God's love than I ever was in my days of the period.
That when I say "His arms are upholding me", today I feel confidence where yesterday felt merely truth.
Truth occupies a place in the head. The steady stripping away of pride and hope in my OWN self and power has moved "truth" to a deep realization in the heart
Time and again I've seen Him work. Seen Him strip me naked of even what passed for belief. And then, lying in an utter heap of ... of shattered dreams, broken heart, tortured pride and pitiful self effort...
I see HIM. I see HIS WORK.
And all I can do at the end is look up in wonder with the sad, chastened, joyful, ecstatic ...
ellipsis
D
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