Ellipses | Punctuation | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello David hello
Paige so in this video we're going to
talk about a piece of punctuation called
the ellipsis or ellipses in the plural
form as we have here so what what is an
ellipsis so an ellipsis is a punctuation
mark that is actually made up of three
periods with spaces in between them
boop-boop-boop it has two main uses okay
use number one it indicates a pause in
speech so like when you said hello David
and I said hello Paige right so that
that ellipsis in the middle shows that
you're pausing when you're speaking so
like there's a lot of reasons why you
might pause in your speech you might be
hesitating or thinking or just whatever
the case may be you can you can use an
ellipsis to to show that you're pausing
right and usage number two for the
ellipsis is that it shows that a portion
of quoted material has been taken out
why would you take some of a quote out
so we have here Paige you have chosen a
quote from the renowned wizard and
orator Albus Dumbledore and he says
words are in my not so humble opinion
are most inexhaustible source of magic
if you wanted you could kind of take out
that aside that in my not so humble
opinion yeah I don't have a lot of space
on this screen so I don't want to write
that whole thing right so I can say
words are ellipses are most
inexhaustible source of magic so okay so
Paige I have a question yeah why do we
even need this why can't you just say
words are our most inexhaustible source
of magic that's a great question so if I
quote someone and I just sort of
willy-nilly take words out without
indicating that I've taken some
information out of the quote I can make
it seem like someone said something
totally different to what they actually
said right it can it can be so easy to
to misconstrue someone's actual words so
this shows that this isn't exactly what
Albus Dumbledore said but it's the point
that I want to get across with my quote
that make sense I think so
so you're saying that there's kind of
like a like it and
six question here right so how do we
like accurately reproduce someone's
words without without misrepresenting
them totally so it shows that you have
messed with it somehow yes exactly but
that you're you're calling out the fact
that you've cut out pieces so that
people don't necessarily get the wrong
idea
totally well I think there is kind of an
art to using an ellipsis right yeah I
agree
you know you could you could use it in
you know technically wherever you want
when you're when you're quoting someone
if you want to take something out but if
you use it over and over or in the wrong
places you can you can still
misrepresent what a person was saying if
you wanted to you could render that
sentence words are my opinion right if
you didn't use uh ellipses you could
just render that however you please cuz
those are words that were said
approximately in that order right yeah
without ellipses or not without ellipses
okay you could just be like words are my
opinion mm-hmm and that's not that's not
exactly what Dumbledore said right
brakes no that's not what he was saying
at all those are some of the words he
said but that's not the idea he was
trying to get across so you you have
this responsibility with ellipses to do
the right thing to really represent the
way that somebody speaks accurately yeah
definitely let's let's talk about the
end of someone's sentence and I want to
indicate that at some point after I've
cut off the end of the sentence the
sentence ends where do I put that extra
period or do I need an extra period
right okay so let's say our sentence is
something like I like cheese although
I'm more partial to a Wensleydale than I
am to a cheddar or a Stilton okay might
want to just be able to write that
sentence as I like cheese ellipsis
period right yeah so so we're still
including the terminal punctuation in
this sentence yes to show that it ends
after the ellipsis right yeah that
ellipsis there is showing that stuff has
been removed right from this quote and
then that final period is showing that
it's the end of a sentence
like it normally does because like the
ellipsis you know looks just like three
periods but it is its own thing and
doesn't stand in as a period so that's
what so if we didn't have that final
period we just sort of look like you
were trailing off like there was a pause
I like cheese yeah there there would be
no end to that sentence right but those
are the two functions of ellipses that
is that it indicates a pause and speech
like hello page or chose that a portion
of quoted material has been taken out
yeah
like words are our most inexhaustible
source of magic that was a great
Dumbledore impression thank you babe you
can learn anything okay
Albus out page out cool did it