Learn English – use of ellipses at the end of a paragraph

punctuation

When a quote ends a paragraph, essentially trailing off, one (generally) uses three ellipses points such as the following:

"I'm not going to humor that suggestion! There is no way …"

Even if the end of the quote completes a sentence, if it's an incomplete thought, it may retain three points

"I'm not going to humor that suggestion! There is no way I can …"

But what about

Mars, the red planet–but to the Romans, it is the God of War! Herein lies the story [?]

A period just doesn't seem to cut it. So the question is, three dots or four? And if four, what should the separation be? I realize this is a bit of a style issue. THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, which I use, only advocates four equally spaced points if it indicates the removal of paragraph(s) in quoted material.

Best Answer

Herein lies the story.

It's a full sentence, so it ends with a period.

(If you insist on using ellipses, use 4; you use 4 to end a full sentence.)

Edit: The Chicago Manual of Style (13th ed) says:

10.47 "In general, no ellipses points should be used 1) before or after an obviously incomplete sentence, 2) before or after a run-in quotation of a complete sentence, 3) before a block quotation beginning with a complete sentence ... 4) after a block quotation ending with a complete sentence."

The OP last sentence in question is "Herein lies the story." This is a complete sentence. It it were a block quotation, by 10.47, point 4, ellipses should not be used.

But the sentence in question is for a narrative passage, not a quoted passage. CMOS uses ellipses for the omission of a word or phrase from within a quoted passage. (10.36) This is not the case, so again, ellipses are contraindicated.

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