Answer: What is the correct punctuation for speech that "trails off"?
with examples from Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Fullmetal Alchemist
velocitygrass asks: What is the correct punctuation for speech that "trails off"? What is the punctuation for interruption (either by yourself or someone else)?Many people will tell you that trailing-off punctuation is largely a result of stylistic choices. Personally, I disagree ( Read more... )
velocitygrass asks: What is the correct punctuation for speech that "trails off"? What is the punctuation for interruption (either by yourself or someone else)?Many people will tell you that trailing-off punctuation is largely a result of stylistic choices. Personally, I disagree ( Read more... )
It's good to know that I can keep the ellipses (although I'll stick with the non-spaced ones) and I'll make sure to add an additional period when they end the sentence in the future.
When trying to research this on my own, I came across the em dash, but it looked scarily large to me and now I just checked and it seems Times New Roman as well as Arial really have an em dash that's too long (Arial 25% and Times New Roman 40%!). *curses Windows standard fonts*
In Verdana they look fine however, even if I'll have to get used to the lack of space afterwards.
Again, thank you for clearing this up for me!
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For the non-spaced ellipsis, you should run them up against the terminating letter of the word, but put a space after the ellipsis. Like... this. (Typing that was quite difficult for me, I'll have you know). I posted my reasoning for the spaced ellipsis above. I admit, in my heart of hearts, I'm campaigning for usage of the spaced ellipsis online to aid reading. ;)
The "m" length is an approximation, but basically as long as your em dash is longer than an en dash, it's understandable.
- vs. - (em dash vs. en dash)
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Although now I have to ask: If I don't use spaces, is there no space at all if the sentence trails off and a new one begins?
"I didn't know that I.... I mean, since I left her, I've thought about it all the time."
or
"I didn't know that I... . I mean, since I left her, I've thought about it all the time."
Okay, the second one looks strange to me. I think generally a space before a period looks strange to me.
The "m" length is an approximation, but basically as long as your em dash is longer than an en dash, it's understandable.
Yes in terms of differentiation it doesn't matter to be precisely of that length. But I think it does make a difference visually. I'm somewhat picky in terms of aesthetics (at least in some cases). And the humongous - in Times New Roman makes me uncomfortable. Look at this comparison between Georgia and Times New Roman on your first example:
( ... )
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"I didn't know that I.... I mean, since I left her, I've thought about it all the time."
If we weren't on the internet, a printer would probably use a slight space between the dots in the ellipsis (making it look sort of like this: "I didn't know that I. ... I mean, since I left her, I've thought about it all the time."), but for internet purposes, absolutely no spaces is all right.
What's funny is that I think the em dash in Georgia looks too short. Heh. I greatly prefer the look of it in Times New Roman. (Though I possible see it more often in Times New Roman which is what that looks fine to me.)
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Maybe it's really just a matter of getting used to it. :)
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Like... this.
Okay, I hadn't got this far. This is the way I do my ellipses, which seems natural. IE, a punctuation unit is followed by a space, and the ellipsis is a single unit, so voilà!
At least I'm consistent in my own writing, but I need to be sure that, if one of my authors has a question, I can give her both options and let her choose what's most comfortable for her.
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