If you cut it in half with a vertical line and rotate the 2nd half by 1800 and align it below the first one, it forms an ellipse. This word is derived from Greek Ellipsis which means to leave out or fall short of. Ellipsis is an integral part of English grammar. It is defined as omission of one or more words from a sentence in such a way that what is being omitted is a common knowledge. You may perceive Ellipsis as very uncommon or strange but believe me, without it any conversation in any language will really appear very abnormal.
Everybody uses ellipsis many times a day. Here is an example "I can go but my wife cannot." Here "go" is omitted but everyone understands it. "You know the answer but I do not." It will feel absurd saying "you know the answer but I do not know the answer." I understand this but do you? You see what I mean. In written or printed work use of "…" or "***" in place of some word or words or even sentences is also termed ellipsis and again it is used quite often. The frequency of the use of ellipsis in printed material is directly proportional to the censorial vigor of a country. Though ellipsis is not really intended for that purpose.
McDonald's says that its food is good and very delicious. They omit the fact that it is also very fattening and may be quite harmful to your health. But as almost everybody knows it, it is just an ellipsis, not an attempt to deceive anyone!
If you use language, you cannot not use ellipsis. The M sign is appearing so fast all over the globe that soon if you eat, you cannot not use McDonalds in spite of the ellipsis. The double negatives are intentional.
However if you consider only one half of the McDonald's sign, it is a parabola. What has parabola got to do with the language? Well, according to some it is fundamental to development of language. I will discuss it later. Watch the space.
Thanks. (for being so understanding = ellipsis)
No comments:
Post a Comment