As I began to write this blog, Weebly gave me the following placeholder text at the top of the page.

Those little dots are all over the place!

Let’s get to know them better, shall we?

What is an ellipsis?

An ellipsis (plural: ellipses) is a punctuation mark comprising three periods in a row. (Whether or not there are spaces between these periods is a matter of style. More on that later.)

​I learned from Keith Houston in his wonderful book Shady Characters that the word “ellipsis” comes from the Greek élleipsis, meaning “to fall short” or “to leave out.”

How is the ellipsis used?

I’m so glad you asked. It can perform a few different tasks, outlined below.

An ellipsis can communicate a “trailing off.”

In this case, the ellipsis can act with the sentence-terminating power of a period. No additional period is necessary, and the subsequent sentence begins with a capitalized letter.

Where the heck is my wallet? I had it when I was leaving the bar. I put it on the roof of the car, and … Oh, no.

If you need that trailed-off sentence to be question-esque, then pop a question mark on the end.

Could this ice pick be the one that was used … ?

Similarly, if you need to get exclamatory, add an exclamation point.

What do you mean, you’re my boyfriend’s wife? You can’t possibly … !

An ellipsis can be used mid-sentence to convey faltering.

I didn’t lie under oath, exactly … I mean … I was being … poetic.

Let me point out here: Practically every writing authority says you should seriously try to avoid these “pausing ellipses.” Evidently, they’re annoying to read. You (and I) have been warned.

An ellipsis can say, “Text has been removed from this spot.”

This is really the primary job of the ellipsis.

If you pull out words from the middle of a sentence, you can indicate it like this:

A witness stated, “I saw the … spaceship land right on the polo field.”

Or let’s say you had a three-sentence quote and removed the middle sentence (“Its fleece was white as snow,” here):

“Mary had a little lamb. … Everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”

Notice how right after the word lamb, there’s:

1. a sentence-ending period
2. a standard après-period (single) space
3. the ellipsis, announcing a missing chunk of text
4. another space (more on that below)
5. another complete quoted sentence (which begins with a capital letter, as all sentences should)

You don’t typically need an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation.

In Lapsing into a Comma: A Curmudgeon’s Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print—and How to Avoid Them Bill Walsh makes this curmudgeonly point: “It’s silly to indicate omission at the beginning or end of a quote, since virtually all quotes are from people who have spoken before in their lives and will do so again.”

Obviously—and importantly—you never want to misrepresent anyone’s sentiments, but if you eliminate the beginning of their sentence without changing the intended meaning of the quote, you can then portray the truncated sentence with a capitalized “first” word.

For example, if in real life I rhapsodize, “I love cauliflower so much that I believe it is a perfectly good choice for breakfast,” then the journalist following me around might quote me this way: “Cauliflower … is a perfectly good choice for breakfast.”

The interior life of an ellipsis: Should there be spaces in there?

Most of the resources I use, including my go-to Chicago Manual of Style, say that you should put a single space between each of the three dots, like so:

But if you do that for self-published online writing, you’re liable to end up with an occasional bad line break, with one or two dots at the end of one line and the remainder on the next—a bad look. Here’s one solution: Insert a non-breaking space before every dot to ensure the whole bunch stays together. To create a non-breaking space:

• On a PC, type ctrl + shift + space.
• On a Mac, type option + space.​​

You might be better off using the AP’s ellipsis style (like I’m doing in this blog), which dictates three dots in a row—no spaces between them. Now, when I type three consecutive periods on my Mac, a nifty thing happens: My three dots magically transmogrify into a solid ellipsis. It has a smidge of non-breaking space (but not quite a full space) in between its three dots, and they stay together, never to be separated. You can see a difference, if barely:

In places where this doesn’t happen automatically, I can type option + semicolon on my Mac to achieve it. The internet tells me that on a PC, you can hold down the alt key while typing 0133, or if you’re in Word, you can type ctrl + alt + period.

Oh, yay: a bizarre exception.

Just when I thought I had the two ellipsis styles (gapped and non-gapped) straight, I read this line from Bill Walsh in Lapsing into a Comma: “In headlines, … I prefer, like many publications, to omit the spaces between ellipses entirely.” Everywhere else, though, he puts spaces between the dots.

Neat, huh? The authorities swing from one ellipsis style to another if it suits them.

Relevant aside: I removed words from the middle and the end of Walsh’s complete quote above, but I didn't change his meaning.

Swaddle your ellipses in space.

Interior space is one thing; exterior space is another. The ellipsis is kind of standoffish most of the time. It likes to have a single space to its left and and a single space to its right in almost every scenario. Check out all the characters an ellipsis buffers itself against with a space.

The comma:

“I turned on the light, … and then I realized the kitchen was filled with raccoons.”

The semicolon:

“Randy knew he had to redeem himself … ; he spent the weekend cleaning the gutters, the windows, the chimney, and his text history."

The colon:

“Here is what I want … : a martini, a cigar, and several more martinis.”

The exclamation point:

Her eyes took on the shape and size of hubcaps as she uttered, “You can’t seriously … !”

The question mark:

“But Sally,” lisped her little brother, “how could the Tooth Fairy know … ?”

Words:

​As you can see in all my examples in this blog, there’s always a space between an ellipsis and the nearest word.

The only creature an ellipsis seems willing to allow to get close to it is a quotation mark.

Lady Gaga shot back, “If I had a dollar for every time someone …” Then she took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and strode away.

In UX/UI, spaceless seems to be the style.

On websites these days, we’re often coaxed to “continue reading” or to proceed further down some marketing funnel. This generally happens with a brief piece of text followed immediately by an ellipsis—with no spaces whatsoever.

In fact, on the AP Stylebook website, just beneath its guidance to put a space on either side of an ellipsis, there’s this flagrant contradiction:

In conclusion …

In “real” writing (no need to fret about your texts and DMs, and UX/UI seems to be a renegade universe):

• Consistency is queen. Decide how you want to approach ellipses and then stick with your approach.
• Don’t let your ellipses get torn asunder. Keep those three dots together. Don’t let a line break separate them.
• If looks matter, take extra care. If you’re doing actual typesetting in Canva or similar, don’t let a line break push an ellipsis to the beginning of a line.
• Ellipses are standoffish. You almost always want a space on either side of your ellipses.

This is just the tip of the ellipsis iceberg, dear reader. The Chicago Manual of Style can take you into topics like French, Italian, and Russian ellipses, to brackets and beyond. If that sounds like your cup of hot chocolate, well then …

Affiliate link alert: The two books mentioned above include affiliate links. And I’ll give you a few more, with these resources I consulted while writing this piece:

• Common Errors in English Usage by Paul Brians
• Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer
• Garner’s Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner, though you might be better off with his newer Modern English Usage
• The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin, also now available in a later edition​

​

A lot of people collect things. Bobbleheads. Beer bottles. Barbie dolls. 

I, on the other hand, refuse to collect anything. Or I should say: I refuse to collect anything that takes up space, collects dust, or requires special insurance coverage.

What I collect are words. I currently have nineteen different lists with titles like “naughty words I'll probably never use,” “malapropisms,” “eggcorns,” and “good names.” I collect words that sound mellifluous, that paint a vivid picture, or that simply perform a specific job beautifully. You can see a number of words I treasure here.

One of my lists is entitled “terrible words.” These are words that are difficult to pronounce or unpleasant to hear or that sound like the wrong part of speech. Some just rub me the wrong way.

My “terrible words” list was on my mind this week when I was shopping for postage stamps online. I noticed that the USPS has collection of Forever stamps dedicated to—of all things—backyard games. The collection’s eight different stamps cover everything from badminton to bocce, including cornhole. “Cornhole” has been #5 on my “terrible words” list for years. And coincidentally, it appears directly above “philately,” which means “stamp collecting,” but sounds like an adverb and has a sadistic number of l-sounds in it. Two thumbs down.

Anyway, I thought I’d share my “terrible words” list with you. And no, “moist” does not appear on it. I’m a copywriter who needs to write evocatively about cake from time to time, and I’m not about to take “moist” out of commission. Also, I remain in the minority that just doesn’t mind “moist.” I’ll write it again, looking you directly in the metaphorical eye. Moist.

If that made you uncomfortable, you may want to quit reading. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.

​Here we go—my list of terrible words:

​conurbation
ombudsman
contumely (A NOUN!)
smegma
cornhole
philately
sack/sac
diphthong
crampons
taintworm
epiglottis
crepuscular
suppurate
flaccid
fistula
crotch
contrariety
sillily
monthslong
palimpsest
shunt
stalk (the noun)
wilily
brobdingnagian
Behance
bespoke
carbuncle
sackbut
crumhorn 
ornerier
spendthrift
vuln
fleshpot 
I don't think it's *terrible*, but prolix has no business being an adjective.
severalty
spurtle

A number of my friends contributed to this list. (Thanks, Heather and David and everyone else.) One person wrote this gem: “‘Crepuscular’ is like a beautiful woman named Hagatha.’” (Apologies to all the Hagathas out there.)

How about you? Are there words that make you cringe? Please share!

Today is my (and my husband’s) 29th wedding anniversary. So I thought I’d tell you the story of how we got engaged. 

Bob (the now-husband) and I were living in Boston and had just seen the movie Rambling Rose in the theater. It was dark outside and we were crossing Dartmouth Street in front of Copley Plaza (as seen in the photograph) when Bob suddenly asked, “Would you marry me?”

We were literally in the middle of the street, right about where that arrow is pointing in the photo.

Now, if you know me, what happened next will not surprise you. But it may appall you.

“Would I marry you?” I asked.

You see, would can be conditional. It can convey a hypothetical situation. I didn’t know if Bob meant “Would you marry me if I were the last man on earth?” or “Would you marry me if I were Robert Duvall and you were Diane Ladd?” I didn’t want to answer the wrong question.

So I asked for clarification. And despite the perfect opportunity (and a pretty good incentive, now that I think about it) to back out, Bob rephrased his question and explained that he was, indeed, asking me to marry him.

We were now on the other side of Dartmouth Street (hello, Rubicon). And the the question had been clearly articulated. It was my turn to answer.

​I didn’t say yes. I just looked at Bob and nodded my head. I knew better than to try to use any words.

I find the idea of AI-assisted copywriting pretty terrifying. Every time I use Google Docs to write something, a voice in my head says, “They’re recording all of this. Every keystroke. Every hesitation. Every correction. Soon, they (whoever that is) will be able to replicate your voice exactly. You will be rendered obsolete. You will become impoverished. Worthless. Ruined. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. You will have handed them the keys to your copy kingdom, all for the sake of convenience.”

I admitted as much to a small networking group last week. But one of the participants assured me that Jarvis.ai, the self-proclaimed “future of writing” was a wonderful tool. Hmmm, I thought. Hmmm.

A few days later, when I shared my AI anxiety with a group of copywriters, my friend Bill assuaged it a bit, reminding me that new tools are frequently scary at first, but then they come to be ordinary.

And so, dear reader, I am dictating this text into Jarvis right now. I had surgery on my hand yesterday, and the aforementioned Jarvis enthusiast has given me a free five–day trial at the highest subscription tier, so I’m using my post-op recovery time to play around with what could well be my replacement. (Jarvis will never require hand surgery. Or hands.)

I’m going to conduct a little experiment. I’ve written everything above this point myself. But now I’m going to give Jarvis the command, “Use the text above to finish this blog.” Let’s see what happens.

Oops. Take two.

OK. That was an unfair test, evidently. Jarvis just repeated what I’d written, word for word.

Now I’ll instead ask it to write three paragraphs answering the question, “Should copywriters feel threatened by Jarvis and other AI?” (Edit—I directed it to go beyond three paragraphs.)

Here’s what Jarvis wrote.

As a copywriter, I'm very curious about how AI can be used to create content. And as a writer, who knows how intimidating the blank page can be, I've been exploring this myself for some months now. But what seems scary to many writers is that AI will take over the profession—or at least large parts of it.

In short: No need to fear! Certainly, copywriters should use every tool at their disposal--whether it's motivational apps or mindmapping techniques or just dousing oneself with coffee and getting started on that white paper--but they shouldn't worry too much about artificial intelligence taking over their livelihoods anytime soon (if ever). 

Copywriting has developed into an artistic discipline like anything else; there are still rules that can be followed, but the best writing is often creative and innovative. And AI isn't intelligent enough to do that yet.

However, all this doesn't mean copywriters shouldn't explore the possibilities of new tools like Jarvis—the future of writing--in their own work. For example, it can help marketers create more targeted content using natural language generation (NLG) to increase their lead generation.

So relax, copywriters. You may be able to stop obsessively checking your email for that message from Google telling you that it's "improved" your writing style and now it won't need you anymore. Relax and enjoy the ride!

Well, well, well. That was a pleasant surprise! Jarvis worked out some complete thoughts, and apparently wasn't intimidated by the idea of writing a blog post on AI's impact on copywriting.

I don't know if it's any good, but I have to admit that it sounds pretty professional—much more so than anything I've been able to produce.

Conclusion (and a question).
​
It’s me again. Sara. The one with the hands and the heartbeat.

So Jarvis is telling me to relax and enjoy the ride; and also, that it can write much more professionally than I can. It says that it probably won’t be taking over my livelihood soon. I'm left feeling both uneasy and insulted. This little Jarvis guest post is part gaslighting, part death threat.

What do you think? Should I spend between $29 and $119 a month to keep my enemy close?​

How’s that for a salacious headline? Salacious is a great word that means something like raunchy or obscene. Read to the end if you want to learn about its etymology. (And of course you do.)

Testicle, Sara. Get to the testicle.

But wait! First I need you to know that the photo above is not a testicle. It’s merely a fruit that my mother described as “testicular” in appearance: a fig. I’m comfortable writing a salacious headline, but I draw the line at showing a photo of a testicle.

OK. Onward. To the testis, singular.

Wait, though. Can I just interrupt this story to tell you about one of the more embarrassing moments of my life? I was in high school, and I was trying to ask a teacher—in front of a full classroom—whether he’d be returning our graded tests that day. To put a playful spin on things, I used a diminutive of the word “tests.” Yes: I asked about “our testies.” Out loud. 💀

So, back to Ralph’s testicle. Remember how I told you that I stole two puppies when I was a kid? Ralph and Floyd were their names, and they lived as “outside dogs,” meaning that they were filthy and ill-mannered and not allowed in our living space. They generally ran around, dug into the lawn in pursuit of moles, and hosted ticks of various sizes. 

They were little terrier mongrels. Ralph was mostly black; Floyd, the color of a used cigarette filter. They were probably in the ten-to-twelve-pound range and had no trouble escaping our backyard and running loose—it happened all the time. They weren’t the only dogs roaming the neighborhood, either, so it was no great surprise that they sometimes got into fights with other dogs.

Did I mention that this was the 1970s? Things were different then.

Anyway, one day, I noticed that Ralph had sustained a heinous-looking injury in his nether region.

(Interestingly, when I looked up the term “nether region,” Wikipedia informed me that yes, it does mean “Euphemism or slang for the buttocks, groin and genitals of human body, separately or collectively.” But it also means “Hell, the Underworld, or any place of darkness or eternal suffering.” Take from that what you will.)

When I saw Ralph’s bloody boo-boo, I reported it to my parents so they could do whatever grownups did to take care of such things.

And it was not until decades later that I realized that what they did to address this situation was absolutely insane.

I wasn’t present for the any of the conversations between my parents and the veterinarian back then, so I can't tell you who decided what tack to take or what the rationale was.

But I do know the following, because my sister corroborated it.

After Ralph sustained an injury between his hind legs and he was taken to the vet…

...he came home with some black stitches and...

ONE REMAINING TESTICLE.

Yes, a man with a veterinary degree decided to anesthetize my peripatetic, fertile little mutt and remove only ONE of his puppy-propagating sperm sacs. (I detest the word “sac,” but I will employ it here, where it is so perfectly accurate.)

What the actual furry, four-legged fornication?

Did people understand reproduction back then? Did they believe it was a mortal sin to remove a male’s virility? Was superstition involved? Laziness? Alcohol? I so wish I could ask my parents, but alas, they’re no longer available.

If you have any insight into the animal-control practices in Oklahoma City at the end of the Ford administration, please share. Otherwise, you can just let the absurdity of this tale wash over you like I did when it occurred to me a few years back.

Spay and neuter your pets, people. Completely.

OK, I promised the backstory on salacious. It comes from the Latin salax, meaning “lustful,” which comes from salire, “to leap.” As the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary explains, salacious probably came from this concept: “‘fond of leaping,’ as in a male animal leaping on a female in sexual advances.”

Someone from Mumbai just sent me a message on LinkedIn. He wanted to show me a writing error he’d spotted. The allegedly misused word was oversight.

Uh-oh, I thought: Janus word.

I read the problematic sentence, and sure enough—there was no error. Just English being wacky again.

I explained that oversight has two different meanings that are essentially opposites. You can make an oversight if you’re sloppy (overlooking something); conversely, if you’re extremely reliable, you might be granted the oversight (supervision) of an entire department or company. So you might say there’s a bad kind of oversight and a good one.

Thanks, English.

Similarly, in the springtime, you might seed a garden (place seeds in the soil). But after you grow a cucumber, you might want to seed it (remove the seeds) before you cut it up for your salad.

You might dust your tiramisu with cocoa powder (that is, add a dusting of it); you might also need to dust your furniture (remove the dust).

If you permit some sort of behavior, you sanction it. But if you don’t permit it, you might threaten sanctions as punishment.

It’s no wonder these types of words are called Janus words. The Roman god Janus had two faces, as in the statue above. (Side note—January is named after Janus, too.)

These words are also called contronyms and auto-antonyms and a few other terms you can learn about on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

If you peruse an article about Janus words, that means you examine it very attentively. But it also means that you just skim it in a cursory manner.

Do you have any favorite Janus words?

​

I've said before that I am not a grammar Nazi. I have no interest in shaming anyone or trying to prove any kind of superiority. I promise.

I do believe, however, that many people—particularly businesspeople—want to write clearly and correctly, and I'm happy to help them achieve that goal.

So a while back, when a customer service rep typed "your welcome" to me, I shared the above screenshot on LinkedIn. I pointed out that it's an extremely common error and explained ​that when you say "you're welcome," you're creating a contraction of "you are welcome." I thought it might help some people better understand and remember the correct spelling.

(I did not​ write, or even imply, "Look how stupid this person is." I simply explained the correct spelling.)

I was surprised when I got this response from a "senior business development manager":

Huh.

I had to think about that just a bit.

While I was thinking, I did a bit of "research" (read: Googling) about this conviction that so long as we can understand each other, we shouldn't be fussing about apostrophes and spelling.

And I discovered that this senior business development manager's opinion was not unique. I found a meme that echoed his sentiment with just a touch more vulgarity:

I won't even comment on that missing apostrophe. I'll just address the question.

First—in my defense, I never correct people directly unless I know they want me to, and then I only do so privately.

But as for the "correctness" thing, I'll explain "why the fuck" it matters.

It matters because we live in a society. With conventions and expectations. And—occasionally—manners. We abide by certain rules to get along harmoniously. To establish credibility. To gain trust and respect. This is why you don't typically show up for a job interview barefoot or pick your nose when you're meeting your new neighbors. It's why you stand in line and wear pants in Starbucks. It's why your doctor doesn't buff his fingernails while he's listing your treatment options.

Also, writing is about connecting and communicating with our readers. We owe them the kindness of making our message as clear as possible. It's like holding a door open for them. It's polite. We're helping them along. We're putting in a good effort to save them trouble. We're showing them respect.

I admit that writing is a series of judgment calls, and I might write more casually on Twitter than I would on behalf of a higher education client. But fundamentally, I always try to think about the people reading my writing, and I try to treat them well.

So that's "the issue," and that's my position, for anyone who's wondering.

You're welcome.

Just now, I was working on an email that includes a lesson about when to use "awhile" and when to use "a while." And after... well, a while, that "while" and "awhile" business started to look mighty weird. Almost like they weren't words at all but just a meaningless collection of letters.

If you've ever experienced such a phenomenon, then you've felt semantic satiation. Instead of paraphrasing the Wikipedia article, I will simply point you there, should you want to learn more about it.​

​If you didn't know the sensation of semantic satiation before, I'll bet you do now. :)

I just returned from a full seven days in Seattle—my first time visiting. I was attending CreativePro Week, a fantabulous conference I highly recommend for graphic designers. (Next year's will be held in Austin.)

Here are a few things I loved about it.

• Within my first fifteen minutes at the conference, I ran into one of my favorite former colleagues from Publix Super Markets, Inc., dynamite designer and lovely human Neal Mitchell. As you can see, we were a good distance from the office we used to work in together. Small world and all that.

​

• I gave an Ignite talk (20 slides auto-advancing every 15 seconds over 5 minutes) about the history of "lorem ipsum" placeholder text and many other topics having to do with English, etymology, printing, and the like. I learned SO MUCH preparing this talk. Did you know, for example, that the man who gave Timex its name, according to his son, liked to read Time magazine and used a lot of Kleenex, so he put the two names together? (This is a slide from my presentation.)

That photo is a pretty good representation of my trip: just lovely. I'm so glad I went, and I'm looking forward to CreativePro Week 2020!

We live in a time when I need to say this: Nazis are bad.

And I could use this space to analyze when the word "Nazi" has managed to qualify as amusing, and when it hasn't, and why. But that's not what I want to focus on.*

Let's leave the word "Nazi" aside for a few minutes and instead talk about the common prototype of  a dictatorial, hairsplitting, pedantic, shrill, strident curmudgeon who haughtily corrects everyone around her. Call it a grammar cop. Or a grammar dominatrix. A grammar fire-breathing dragon.

I'm none of those things.

What I am is a language lover. I'm a fan of clear, well-crafted sentences. And yes, I've been known to cringe when I hear or see errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and the like. But I'm not going to push anyone's nose in their mess and shame them for making a mistake.**

Instead, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that all of us are doing our best. We've all had different upbringings and educational opportunities, and we all have different kinds of brains. (Some people, for example, are predisposed to utter spoonerisms or misspell words. You can blame your genes.)

For those who want to write and speak more clearly and correctly, I will happily share what I know and try to provide assistance. Almost daily, I post little spelling and grammar hints (many of which you can see here) on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I want to help people distinguish between "me," "myself," and "I" and know their "they'res" from their "theres."

Essentially, my attitude toward language is one of fascination and appreciation. I want to share my enthusiasm. I want to spread the love. And there's nothing Nazi-like about that.