So, sometimes when you are extremely familiar with something, it can be hard to remember that others may not be. That is the case for the following two items of which I am about to write. And, I write about these things not to shame anyone or make someone feel foolish, but to educate. For, as someone once said, “Fool me once… shame on you. Fool me… can’t get fooled again.”

Queue

Fine word, dumb spelling. I think most people know what the word means when they hear it, but when faced with it on screen or on paper, they panic. They feel that it can’t possibly be correct that you pronounce the word correctly by saying just the first letter. And really, what is the point of the second “ue?” If the word stopped at “Que,” I think we would all do just fine. To back me up, you can listen to a robot lady say the word here.

So anyway, it is pronounced “kyoo.” It is not pronounced “kwee,” or “kweh-weh,” or “kway,” so don’t say those things aloud. In your head is fine, but out loud, “kyoo.”

Ellipsis

So, this one is even harder, and I often use the plural when I should use the singular. The thing this word refers to is not the geometry thing, which is spelled “ellipse,” and refers to conic sections. An ellipsis is three periods. It means that something has been left out, like in a quote you would read in a news story. I used them in the quote above, somewhat erroneously, although not necessarily. In the quote in the first paragraph, what I left out were the awkward pauses that occurred in delivery of the words in a speech. I do that often in writing to indicate a pause that would occur if I were talking. I don’t think that it is quite correct to do that, but I don’t care because I think it makes people read what I am writing in the way I would like them to. Also, I am not in school anymore and will not receive poor marks on a test.

Now, the computer tie-in is that Microsoft loves to use the ellipsis in SharePoint, which is why I need to refer to them almost daily. If you store a file in SharePoint, at the right side of the space where the filename appears, there will be an ellipsis indicating that there is more ‘stuff’ you can do. In their infinite wisdom, the ‘stuff’ you get to next is never the ‘stuff’ you want, so you need to click on another ellipsis to get to the good ‘stuff.’ So, in SharePoint, there are two ellipsis, or to use the plural, there are ellipses, that you need to be aware of and use.

At any rate, I have found that most people are not aware of what the word for those three little dots are. Now, you have perhaps been made aware, and can lord it over your friends. I suggest you get started now.

Summary

Let’s all just get back to work and not worry about any of this, shall we?