Ellipses and politeness - Printable Version

Ellipses and politeness - Printable Version

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Ellipses and politeness - Zgarbas - 2012-07-22

I was writing on Lang8 when I realized I'm a bit stumped with ellipses. I like writing things like "Aし、Bし。。。" or ”~ばよかった。。。”, but I'm not sure if they fit with the 丁寧語 I use for the rest of the entries. Are they acceptable, or should I add a です somewhere/avoid them? In my head they sound good, and so far I haven't really gotten corrected on it, but it might be the Lang8 guys being soft on me.

Ellipses and politeness - yudantaiteki - 2012-07-22

ばよかった… is not ellipsis; you're not leaving anything out (did you mean よかったのに…?) し… should be fine, though. You can put です if you want but as long as you're not trying to be especially polite you should be OK.

Ellipses and politeness - merlin.codex - 2012-07-22

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Ellipses and politeness - Zgarbas - 2012-07-22

Years of my Japanese teacher telling us every day that we should always use 丁寧語 and stories about how this one time a Japanese person got mad because someone used だ　got to me, I guess.

Thank Smile

Ellipses and politeness - JimmySeal - 2012-07-22

Well, it has happened.

Ellipses and politeness - merlin.codex - 2012-07-23

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Ellipses and politeness - vileru - 2012-07-23

The only time I see polite language used in writing is when the writing is directed to a specific person or entity (personal letters, business correspondence, etc.) or when it is needed for literary effect (narration, dialogue, etc.). Otherwise, plain form in a literary style (書き言葉) is used.

Ellipses and politeness - kainzero - 2012-07-23

I write with です and ます and the celebrity blogs I read are also written in 丁寧語。 Still, it's not necessary for everything to be です、 if that makes any sense。　

Also, 。。。 is not ・・・ so watch out for that.

Ellipses and politeness - merlin.codex - 2012-07-23

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Ellipses and politeness - JimmySeal - 2012-07-23

merlin.codex Wrote:I already pointed it out but Lang-8 is not a blog.

And this is in response to what?

Ellipses and politeness - vileru - 2012-07-23

kainzero Wrote:I write with です and ます and the celebrity blogs I read are also written in 丁寧語。

It is important to note, however, that celebrity blogs are directed towards their fans. In contrast, topic-based blogs (literature, philosophy, music, etc.) and diary-type blogs tend to be written in plain form.

Ellipses and politeness - yudantaiteki - 2012-07-23

kainzero Wrote:I write with です and ます and the celebrity blogs I read are also written in 丁寧語。 Still, it's not necessary for everything to be です、 if that makes any sense。　

Also, 。。。 is not ・・・ so watch out for that.

And ・・・ is not … Smile

As for blogs, many of them are written in です/ます even if they're not celebrity blogs. I also notice that on nicovideo, while the comments are almost always in plain form, it's very common for the うｐ主's description and comments on his own video to be in desu/masu and even use keigo.

Ellipses and politeness - Seamoby - 2012-07-23

I've also seen Japanese websites written in the formal form. That aside, Lang-8 is a language learning site. They know you are trying to learn Japanese. There is no good reason to discourage people from using the informal, formal, and polite forms and even mixing them up when writing there to get corrections and feedback, especially when the writer is a beginner.

Ellipses and politeness - dtcamero - 2012-07-23

I would add to the above comment that you don't have to write a lang-8 entry like a faux-diary... in fact most entries I've read are not written that way... people write it like a short essay that they expect to be read by a number of people they are not close with... therefore masu/desu would be a natural choice.

as a more relevant example, my japanese friends on facebook always post in teineigo.

with regard to the OP's original question, I think it's just a question of writing style and the ellipse is totally fine in concert with polite language... provided that you use it in a way that feels natural...
(i'm using as many ellipses as possible here to describe this point...)

I should also point out that while I use ellipses a lot in japanese I never use the japanese period to do it (。。。) and rather prefer the more natural feeling english version (...)...

Ellipses and politeness - merlin.codex - 2012-07-23

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Ellipses and politeness - Zgarbas - 2012-07-23

I write casually every now and then too, but staying constant is important, so that was my main concern. No issue with using them in casual posts.

(I always use 丁寧語 when answering any comments, though, so it totally applies for that part Tongue

)

Ellipses and politeness - JimmySeal - 2012-07-23

I've never used lang-8, but my undersanding was that it's for practicing writing in general. So if you wanted to practice polite writing, wouldn't you use the polite form in that case?

Ellipses and politeness - turvy - 2012-07-23

JimmySeal Wrote:I've never used lang-8, but my undersanding was that it's for practicing writing in general. So if you wanted to practice polite writing, wouldn't you use the polite form in that case?

Exactly.

Ellipses and politeness - SammyB - 2012-07-23

So what exactly is the difference between [ ... ], [ 。。。] and [・・・] ?

Ellipses and politeness - kainzero - 2012-07-24

i was told to use [・・・]

[...] for english
[。。。] is incorrect

Ellipses and politeness - yudantaiteki - 2012-07-24

Yeah I think ・・・ is the most normal. 。。。 is unquestionably wrong, … is something I've seen but it may be used more for English.

Ellipses and politeness - Splatted - 2012-07-24

Magamo Wrote:Notice how I used "……" in the previous example. This is roughly (but not exactly) the same as the English "..." mark as in "*sigh* I think I suck at Japanese..." Unlike in English, you use 6 dots in Japanese. In squared paper, one box has three dots so that そうか…… takes 5 boxes in total (3 for kana and 2 for ……). Each three dot set is called 三点リーダー. When writing vertically, these dots go in the middle of the box while, as you can see from examples in this post, they're kind of at the bottom of a line when written horizontally. Since you're using square paper vertically, you write three dots so that they form a line passing through the center of the box. In your average Japanese input system, you can get it by kanjifying りーだー. Depending on your system, you might be able to get it from "。" or other symbols too. In any case, always use it as a pair so you get 6 dots in two consecutive boxes

From: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=149539#pid149539