It appears I may not be the world's worst language curmudgeon after all...

[mistraltoes]

Quote from a nytimes.com review of the book The Subversive Editor:

Saller herself - the Miss Manners of editing - acknowledges she has these tendencies. She once told her son she had to keep editing because she couldn’t think of another job to which she was so well suited. His response: "Maybe you could be a terrorist."

Hee.

Comments

[vilakins]

It's my dream job. I shout at the TV, "It's 'between you and me', you over-correcting idiot!" and had to bite my tongue last week not to tell our insurance broker how to use apostrophes.

[mistraltoes]

I have gotten into more than one flamewar over the use of ellipses in fiction. I should be ashamed, but I'm not. Somebody has to protect the language. :D

[vilakins]

I've been known to use them when someone pauses or trails off in speech.

[mistraltoes]

And that's the way you're supposed to use them, yes. But only when there isn't another more appropriate piece of punctuation that will do the work. Usually there is. The problem mostly occurs in fanfic, because writers are using punctuation rather than phrasing to indicate dialogue delivery; you don't see that in original fiction much.

I can't say I've ever noticed you overdoing ellipses. I think I'd remember that. :)