Now this may be a case of the pot accusing the kettle of being a darker than average colour given my ham fisted iPhone / iPad typing but can someone please explain what is signified by the quadruple full stop or even worse the quadruple comma?

I've seen this cropping up on many an Internet forum , including this one.

I don't get it . It's not like text speak which is basically a shortcut , here you are actively inserting superfluous punctuation

I hate to say it ( actually I'm feeling arsey so maybe I don't ) but to me it instantly renders any point you may be arguing as invalid by making you look like an illiterate tosser

Anyone?

The triple (or even quadruple) full stop is acceptable and called an ellipsis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

Multiple commas or, worse, multiple exclamation marks, are indeed signs of an illiterate tosser.

I notice you have a triple punctuation in your loacation there ?? - Is it just quadruples that arent good

I'm an habitual user of the triple full stop as an ellipsis, but a quadruple full stop...? No idea.

You mean . . . ellipses????

Don't know why some people use four periods (full stops) but three are called ellipsis. But I'm sure you knew that.

From Wikipedia "The triple-dot punctuation mark is also called a suspension point, points of ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

Oops I see Novo and others beat me to it.

Ooh! Good spot. I hadn't noticed.

Ah perhaps I was aware of the full stop thingy ( but not the name)
I have a suspicion that the average user of said punctuation notation isnt

The quadruple commas seem to appear in posts which are completely unintelligible. To be honest, they frighten me.

They're the equivalent of yadda yadda yadda in conversation and are very useful for manipulating the meaning of sentences.

Punctuation is part of grammar, so here's another question for the Grammar Police.

Earlier in this thread I typed "an habitual..." - what are the rules for using either "a" or "an" in front of a word beginning with either a vowel or the letter "h"?

For example:

An hotel
A hospital
An holistic approach
A horrible evening
An unusual choice
A university

etc.

Or does it just boil down to 'whatever sounds correct, is correct'?

It comes across as more conversational in style so not a problem for me on things like BE, FB. I don't bother to count my ...

Not sure I would appreciate it as much in formal letters.

Personally I never really feel that I have been shouted at by upper case, yet that seems to be the accepted interpretation. Perhaps this is because my first mobile phone could only do upper case.

Me too. Maybe we could start a support group!

I had noticed a link between the number of consecutive commas and the lack of coherent posting. Which led me to wonder if there was a trendy new hip thing that I was missing!

Isn't it "a hotel"????

...