On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> writes: > >> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn >> <pointede...@web.de> wrote: >> > Please use `[...]' or `[…]' to indicate omission instead. I could >> > have written `politeness...' myself. >> >> Incidentally, how _do_ the square brackets help? > > They are a long-standing convention for marking an editorial addition or > clarification. > > Square brackets – also called simply brackets (US) – are mainly used > to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone > other than the original author, especially in quoted text. > > <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Square_brackets_.5B_.5D>
Right, as is often done with dangling pronouns. "[Square brackets] are a long-standing convention..." would be a valid way of quoting your above statement. What I mean is that putting brackets around the ellipsis adds nothing, and certainly doesn't eliminate ambiguity; the only advantage is that [...] cannot be confused for a written-in pause. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
