ellipses are not used to designate a pause in writing

Francis - please don't add little devil cartoons in your posts to me, I can retaliate with the French version (Sadi Carnot) of Maxwell's Demon, with or without pitchforks! And besides, you know that comment was just my latest attempt to keep JTT from further tiresomely wrong postings:

To relieve the pressure, I'll not add devilish emoticons anymore, even though I think they just fit well with the pitchfork..

The ellipses could be considered a single character. It looks like three periods, bit it is a single "character," just the same as a period, space, or carriage return. On that note, the "fourth" dot is a period, not another ellipses.

yes, outlook 2007 treats it as a single character, but you still have to hit the key 3x to type it...

I have pointed out numerous postings of yours wherein you either lied or were stunningly wrong in your assertions.

You get yourself caught up in lie after lie, High Seas, and you don't have brains enough to stop.

Creative writing in general makes use of a lot of nonstandard English. Emdashes are (or were) considered very informal and yet you see them used excessively as early as Poe and probably before. The ellipse is a similar case, and to whoever said that it became a "pause" from e-mail doesn't seem properly informed. It has been used as a way of "trailing off" for a long time, the implication arising from its original meaning of omitted words. Anyone who's seen Star Wars has seen that (and long before email was around.) It is, like everything in English, subject to poetic license. Omitting words that never were, leaving thoughts unfinished, and effectively pausing.

I personally avoid them when I can to make them resonate more when I do use them. If every third thought is left with an ellipse, readers would just become bogged down and the writing would probably sound melodramatic and gimmicky.

If your concern is for using them in a formal context, then your concern is a real one, because most publishers (or professionals receiving your business letter, perhaps) will be turned off for obvious reasons. You wouldn't write professional haikus (although to be honest, I encourage you to try and post results.)

Do you need me to come on here and bang a few heads together?

I like High Seas
I like JTT, despite his tiresome habit of disagreeing with me...
I like Francis too

What a wealth of knowledge, experience, wit and sagacity is there.

So can't we all just get along? I think we can.

It would never ever have been a problem, McTag, had High Seas not frequented these pages with her stunning and transparent lies.

There's even a slight possibility that there's something about the woman to like but do you like her lies?

I'm not sure I should reply to that, or how I should reply if I do. Am.

I've not followed the history of the argument, but I do not believe HS is capable of lying, as you put it (except ironically, or in jest) so I must reluctantly disagree.

I think we can disagree without rancour. I hope we can.

I hope all right-thinking people (you know who you are) come on this forum for pleasure, principally. Long may it be so.