Ellipsis

The ellipsis ( ... ) form an ellipse also called punctuation mark consisting of a sequence of three horizontal spationierten (ie, in uniform, fixed spaced ) of the same size, lying on the baseline points. To mark an ellipsis ( in linguistics called ellipse, so the use of that name for the punctuation mark itself) between two parts of text or even before or after a text part ( ie part of a word, a whole word, phrase, number or series of numbers ).

• 3.1 encoding
• 3.2 keyboard
• 3.3 replacement

Orthography

The use of the ellipsis is 99 and 100 regulated valid in the current ( September 2012 ) German spelling rules in § §.

Ellipsis are basically treated as the respective parts of the text, for which they stand.

If one or more letters of a word is replaced by an ellipsis, they will be added without any spaces or the adjacent parts of words.

Ellipses that represent omitted words or phrases, such as those surrounded by spaces if they do not form a line beginning, located directly in front of a punctuation mark after an opening or before a closing parenthesis. ( For ellipses in quotations, which are enclosed in square brackets, its own rules, see below! )

An exception is an ellipsis before the end of the whole set: Here there is no opinion point, and it must be used a nonbreaking space before the ellipsis. The same applies in the event that a sentence starts with an ellipsis.

Use

Omission of text parts

Omissions are used in direct speech when the speaker of words or phrases are swallowed or the author does not want to play vulgar phrases:

Ellipsis points ( in this case, similar to dashes) are used to indicate pauses in speech or thought flow, or to clarify that a sentence in the middle breaks, for example, because the speaker was interrupted:

Away from the direct speech, or of the inner monologue finds ellipsis mainly as a stylistic device, for example, where a text thought is not completed:

An ellipsis is sometimes used as end of sentence to clarify that either something is missing from the record or the author would like to leave a thought open or unanswered to encourage the reader to think.

Omissions in citations

To restrict the essential parts for the specific use direct quotations, omissions are permitted if they do not distort the meaning of the quotation. Here, several regulations have prevailed, mostly ellipses are used in round or square brackets:

The ellipsis in square brackets can be omitted in integrated quotations at beginning of quote and unquote. However, when highlighted ( with a colon ) quotations should be present ( including final point):

Figures

Beside the classical use in the text are primarily in technical works ellipsis instead of the bis- stroke required if figures contain lines:

Because not allowed to meet two strokes directly, at such intervals, only the word or the ellipse to be used.

Enumeration

A list can also be terminated with an ellipsis. In this case, the comma is omitted after the last element of the list. This therefore corresponds to the general rule list.

Tables

According to DIN 55301 ( design of statistical tables ) the ellipsis stand for " data will be available later on " as wertersetzendes characters (as opposed to value supplementary characters, including quality indicators ). Just as the character is also used in tables of the official statistics.

Use in mathematics

In mathematics, the ellipsis be used as a continuation points in the sense of, etc., to represent intervals, sequences or multiple concatenations vividly according to DIN 1302.

Finite sequences can thus write shorter, for example, the number of

If the sequel is sufficiently clear, can thus also write clearly infinite sequences, such as the odd numbers:

When used with operations, the location of the ellipsis by the typesetter is sometimes adapted to the operation used:

However, the representation by means of the resume points is not clear if the law of formation is not known about behind a series of numbers and can not be assumed to be known. Thus, the result of all the odd numbers from 3 represent, but also all odd primes and any number of others.

Despite the disadvantage of ambiguity possible in principle to the use of the ellipse has a long tradition in mathematics. For example, using Fourier, the inventor of the summation sign the ellipse in its definition. Even today this is common due to the ease of understanding, although a formally precise definition of the summation sign is possible by means of recursion.

A representation by means of the resume points may be useful as a supplemental disclosure to make the understanding of linkages as illustrative. This applies for example for alternating sums, where the representation with alternating plus and minus is clearer than the powers of -1:

Use in graphical user interfaces

In graphical user interfaces states with an attached menu functions or buttons ellipse that when selected, followed by another dialog where the user can make further entries or needs. However, the absence of the ellipse, then the function with the selection alone is already running.

• "Save" - it is stored without further input to the open file under its same name.
• " Save as ..." - In the next dialog, for example, a different file name, a file format or another location can be selected.

Representation in computer systems and replacement

Coding

In the international character encoding Unicode system, the punctuation is included as U 2026 horizontal ellipsis (horizontal ellipsis ).

In the ASCII character set, the character is not included, which is why many older computer systems it could not represent.

In WWW document format HTML, the character is coded as follows:

• ... (hexadecimal),
• ... (Decimal)
• And ... ( named characters).

Keyboard

• On keyboards with the occupancy T2 accordance with the revised German standard DIN 2137:2012-06 the ellipsis character is the key sequence group change ⇨ followed by, (comma) entered.
• On German keyboards for older editions of DIN 2137 ( or with occupancy T1 according to the new version ), the ellipsis as a single typographical characters exist.
• In German Apple systems, the ellipsis can be the key combination ⌥ . entered.
• On Linux systems, the ellipsis character is by pressing the key combination Alt Gr . generated.
• Under X.org can be the sign generally by pressing the compose key and then enter a period (. ) And colon produce (:).
• On Windows, the characters can be entered by holding down the 0133 Alt key while you type the sequence of digits on the numeric keypad.
• In the Neo keyboard layout, the character can by Mod 3 X, the vertical ellipse (see below ) are generated by ↻ . ...

Substitution

If the character can not be displayed because it is missing in the font or the character set used, so it should be replaced by three dots "...".

However, since virtually all modern computer systems and fonts based on Unicode, the character can easily displayed worldwide, processed, transmitted and archived nowadays. A replacement for technical reasons is therefore hardly necessary. Even if the keyboard you are using does not have the character, it can be practically always inserted through a corresponding function of the operating system or the respective text editor.

Some text editors automatically replace three points by typographical characters.

Other ellipsis

Unicode defines the block Mathematical operators, further consisting of three arranged in a series of points characters that are mainly used in tables and mathematical typesetting: