In public speaking or personal conversation, you have non-verbal communication — ways of communicating without actually saying words to communicate those elements. You’d think nonverbal communication would be lost with media — texting, blogs, social networks. Not so.
The element I’m referring to is the ellipses. Wikipedia says that an ellipses can communicate “a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence.” The main idea is that something has been left out of the thought. But the trouble is in figuring out if what has been left out affects what wasn’t left out.
The ironic thing is, half the entries on twitter must be unfinished thoughts! Whether I’m on Facebook, Twitter, or just checking email I encounter “…” constantly. It really does communicate something.
Examples:
- Mr. Uncertain who doesn’t know how to end a sentence — “Guess I’m going to the pool today…” (11 minutes ago)
- Ms. Unhelpful who has a lot to say, but nothing of actual value — “(After 3 paragraphs of explanation), so, I don’t really know what to tell you…” or “I guess it’s just up to you to decide…”
- Mr. and Mrs. Non-committal — “to tell the truth, I don’t really know what to think about all this…”
As I look over my Twitter and Facebook accounts, some people use “…” on the Web like others use hand gestures in conversation. Even though this sounds like a pet peeve (and probably is), consider the effect on others in the way you communicate. Take this last example from a staged Instant Message convo:
- Mike — “So, what do think about what the client said?”
- Steve — “I don’t really know…”
- Mike — “Well what are we going to do now?”
- Steve — “We could do it over again…”
In this brief example, you can see what I mean. The “…” here could mean: (1) I don’t have time to discuss it right now (2) I’m ticked at you already and don’t want to discuss anything further (3) I really don’t know what to say but I know it’s my turn to respond, (4) I’m really just throwing out ideas right now.
If nothing else, pause before using “…” today and make sure it isn’t going to fog up communication or even cause you to miscommunicate.
