In your sentence, there is no ellipsis! Rather, you are wishing to indicate a pause in speaking, whether to indicate a pause as the speaker chooses his next words carefully; or that he has had second thoughts about what he has just said.
Indicate this with 5 or 6 dots:
Joe hesitated. 'The cat sat on…...the mat,' he said.
With ellipsis, there are two forms:
(i) word/s omitted from within the one sentence.
"The cat purred, moved closer to the fire and sat on the mat."
becomes
"The cat…sat on the mat."
Note the format: three dots (no space either side)
(ii) words are omitted between sentences.
“I never expected this! Never in a million years! I can’t believe that I managed to escape with my life. Carlton almost got bitten, right after the thing started turning purple. We’re lucky to be alive.”
A journalist, with precious type space available, cuts it down to this:
“I never expected this! … We’re lucky to be alive.”
Note the format: space three dots space
In your sentence, there is no ellipsis! Rather, you are wishing to indicate a pause in speaking, whether to indicate a pause as the speaker chooses his next words carefully; or that he has had second thoughts about what he has just said.
Indicate this with 5 or 6 dots
No! Just three with a space at each end.
You can't know that. For all you know, the five words "the tatty frayed part of" may have been ellipted:
Thus, "the cat sat on the tatty frayed part of the mat" becomes:
"The cat sat on ... the mat."
Indicate this with 5 or 6 dots No! Just three with a space at each end.
In any case, an ellipsis can also indicate hesitation, though in this case the punctuation is more accurately described as suspension points:
"I wasn’t really ... well, what I mean ... see, the thing is ... I didn’t mean it".
With ellipsis, there are two forms:
(i) word/s omitted from within the one sentence.
"The cat purred, moved closer to the fire and sat on the mat."
becomes
"The cat…sat on the mat."
Note the format: three dots (no space either side)
No! The ellipsis consists of three evenly spaced dots (periods) with spaces between the ellipsis and surrounding letters or other marks:
"The cat ... sat on the mat".
"He goes on to say, 'But Johnson ... was willing to accept a fee for his work."
That second example is from the finest work on English grammar available today.
(ii) words are omitted between sentences.
“I never expected this! Never in a million years! I can’t believe that I managed to escape with my life. Carlton almost got bitten, right after the thing started turning purple. We’re lucky to be alive.”
A journalist, with precious type space available, cuts it down to this:
“I never expected this! … We’re lucky to be alive.”
Note the format: space three dots space. Whoopee, you got that one right.
I come back to the forum to be greeted by your emotional outbursts to my contributions.
Do you believe that YOU are the authority in this forum? I ask, because such emotional outbursts smack of a petty dictator who sees himself in some way challenged.
Just one comment:
The cliché when referring to texts for teaching children how to read is the expression "the cat sat on the mat', similar to the cliché when referring to learning French: ' The pen of my aunt'.
You seem to wish, for convenience of your challenge, to include a phrase referring to the state of the carpet as 'tatty'.
You DO seem to wish to change the English language, when the object of a forum such as this is to help non-native speakers learn it through the sharing of information and opinions- not just yours!
