I Just… Really Like Ellipses… A Lot…

Despite my abstinence when it comes to writing in this blog or any type of formal assignment, I must confess that I am addicted to ellipses. Not only is this three-dot set my favorite punctuation mark for stylistic purposes in fiction writing (used scarcely of course... prose is all about the scarcity of what's good), it is also my go-to punctuation mark when I’m texting. The interesting thing about this bias towards ellipses is that, as Mathew J.X. Malady states in his article “What the… “ from Slate, “they don’t generally provide any sort of typing shortcut… ellipses often require more key strikes and time than the alternative punctuation they are intended to replace.” So what is it about ellipses that keep us using them like they are the best option?

To answer this question I would have to agree with Clay Shirky. He is quoted by Malady and basically states that the ellipsis is used in written conversation to create pauses and hesitations that a face-to-face conversation would naturally include. The natural flow that the use of ellipses gives to a text conversation makes me feel more comfortable than I would feel with completely well written statements and proper punctuation. Take the following conversation as an example:

Person 1: Well I’m taking a gap year after high school… getting my grades up and all… do you know how to solve polynomials for x^5?

Person 2: That’s cool… and yeah not really… I barely know what a polynomial is 

Person 1: ahhh crap… that’s fine… I’m just stuck on this one question...

Person 2: Just skip it already… I gave up on math ages ago… made everything better really

Fairly normal, right? The ellipses help transition to different topics of conversation as much as they help the conversation seem real despite the fact that it took place through Facebook messenger with a friend who currently lives in England. Now look at it with periods replacing all the ellipses:

Person 1: Well I’m taking a gap year after high school. Getting my grades up and all. Do you know how to solve polynomials for x^5?

Person 2: That’s cool. And yeah not really. I barely know what a polynomial is. 

Person 1: ahhh crap. That’s fine. I’m just stuck on this one question

Person 2: Just skip it already. I gave up on math ages ago. Made everything better really

Already the conversation sounds choppy and uncomfortable, even cold. The use of proper punctuation gives the conversation a forced tone, almost like a badly written screenplay where the characters don’t quite seem to be actual human beings interacting.

This relates directly to the TED Talk we watched in class (Txting is killing language. JK!!!) in which McWhorter talked about texting and social media not ruining the English language, but simply helping the language evolve to a point where we can write as we speak. For centuries now writing and speaking have been mostly unrelated even when they are considered to be a part of the same language. No one talks like the sentences in a book or even the sentences on this blog post. No one writes formal essays or literary pieces the way they usually talk. This is exactly the point of ellipses in texting and social media: writing as we speak. They give the conversation the flow of natural speech, whereas proper punctuation use would make it sound distant (well, even more distant considering how impersonal texting is anyway) and unnatural, like you are trying to converse as you would write a novel.

This phenomenon of writing how we speak has been growing since quick global communication began, getting stronger and more interactive as our communications systems get faster and faster. In a world of white screens and perfectly geometrical fonts, some personality is important. Through texts and messenger and even email the only way to express this specific personality and tone is through punctuation. 

Human conversation tends to be vague and loose, it tends to change directions constantly and to pause at unexpected moments, it tends to fluctuate and vary… let’s just say conversations can get very messy. I dare you to give me another punctuation mark that can be applied to express any and all of these conversational tendencies through white and blue iMessage bubbles. 

To Describe or to Prescribe… Apparently That is the Question?

Language is probably the most insane of all human characteristics, not only because of its complexity but also because it constantly changes, develops, and creates specific political/social contexts as much as these contexts create the aforementioned change and development. In the end language is a cyclical thing which humans invented and yet ironically do not fully understand. There are two ways to understand language: you can either try to understand language as it is used or choose to focus on the way language should be used. Linguists are divided between these two approaches to language much like people are divided between left wing and right wing politics (it’s more a sliding scale than an issue of black and white). The linguists that go for understanding language as it is used are commonly known as “descriptivists” while the ones focused on how language should be used are denominated “prescriptivists”. In The New York Times’ Room for Debate the article “Which Language Rules to Flout. Or Flaunt?” brought a descriptivist (Robert Lane Greene) and prescriptivist (Bryan A. Garner) together to debate language. The ideology (for lack of a better word) that I identified most with was the “reasonable [moderate]” descriptivism that Greene believes in. Language should be allowed to evolve and change (it is a human tool after all, it should change at the same rate as we change even though this would indicate that language is going to start changing faster and faster as technology develops and changes our society at a faster rate) but there are certain contexts in which grammar rules and conventions need to be taken into account. In Greene’s more able words: “There is a set of standard conventions everyone needs for formal writing and speaking. Except under unusual circumstances, you should use the grammar and vocabulary of standard written English for these purposes.”

Realistically, language will develop and change whether we want it to or not. Taking a realistic perspective once again, we can’t expect all the conventions of Wnglish to be taken into account when what matters is fast communication. In an informal setting, proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar may even end up being inconvenient. Take texting for example, when an instant message needs to be communicated it is much simpler to type “brb dinner” than it is to type “I’ll be right back, they’re calling me down for dinner”. In this specific context as well as in everyday conversation, informal emails, tweeting (or any other social media), etc. language has developed to make things easier. In my opinion, the creation of abbreviations and pragmatic particles as well as the disregard of common language rules and technicalities can’t be considered wrong in this context.

Journalism, essays, literature, speeches and formal letters are a completely different story. In these specific cases, the technicalities of language should be observed and obeyed simply because that is the way writing was initially developed. It wouldn’t be right to write abbreviations in a formal essay or to ignore the rules of punctuation in journalism. Unless you are disregarding the rules for a specific purpose, this context is not the place to be creative in the name of efficiency.

When we text or tweet or even email informally, we are writing the way we speak: for the sake of communication only and looking for efficiency above all. When we give a speech or recite a poem, we are speaking the way we write: unnaturally long and generally more descriptive, elaborate, and complex than our everyday conversation. This makes all the difference. Language for the sake of efficient communication may be deformed as much as it has to be deformed as long as the message gets across. Language for the sake of art, expression, or information needs to adhere to a certain set of rules. Granted, these rules don’t need to be as strict as: “’which’ must introduce a ‘nonrestrictive’ relative clause (a mere extra bit of information). Only ‘that’ can introduce a ‘restrictive’ clause (a crucial bit of definition)” but basic punctuation and grammar technicalities need to be present.

In the end, language will change and develop regardless of what we want to happen, how we use the language and how we choose to understand it depends on the context we find ourselves in. I would see absolutely no problem with the phrase “lol dude ur insane i don’t even get you” in a text message or as a tweet, it wouldn’t exactly cut it in a college essay though.