ellipses
Those dots that come in the middle of a quotation to indicate somethingomitted are called an “ellipsis” (plural “ellipses”): “Tex told Sam toget the . . . cow out of the bunk house.” Here Tex’s language has beencensored, but you are more likely to have a use for ellipses whenquoting some source in a paper: “Ishmael remarks at the beginning ofMoby Dick, ‘some years ago . . . I thought I would sail about alittle’ —a very understated way to begin a novel of high adventure.” Thethree dots stand for a considerable stretch of prose that has beenomitted. If the ellipsis ends your sentence, some editorial styles require four dots, thefirst of which is a period: From the same paragraph in Moby Dick:“almost all men . . . cherish very nearly the same feelings. . . .” Notethat the period in the second ellipsis has to be snug up against thelast word quoted, with spaces between the other dots.Some modern styles do not call for ellipses at the beginning and endingof quoted matter unless not doing so would be genuinely misle
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