Hey academics: tell me about "(...)" and "snip"!

[Dirk39]

Hello from Germany,
slow between the ears as I am, after reading about 20.000 postings on DU, I somehow recognized that whenever Germans - and other folks - write "(...)", when something from an original source is left out, DUers write "snip". Maybe I was just blind, but I cannot remember "snip" from any english text I did ever read. So please, tell me everything about "SNIP"...

Just curious,
Dirk

[Nevernose]

1. Yes, it should be the ellipses (the three dots)

I have no idea why folks here use "snip," except perhaps that it's easier to see in a lengthy post.

[Endangered Specie]

4. people use snip probably because ... means et cetera or...

to be continued in message.

[Nevernose]

9. No, the ellipses means that something has been left out

The "to be continued" use isn't standard (at least not yet). It's just a thing that people do for whatever reason.

[GirlinContempt]

2. It is like the sound of

cutting something, like if you cut out something from the newspaper it's a 'snip'

so when you cut off an article on here you say 'snip' to indicate the cut.

[WillyBrandt]

3. Snip

It just means "cut", as in cut out or take out.

A German friend of mine wanted once to say that his breadth stank, and he said "Oh, I stunk out the mouth" as in Stinkt aus dem Mund--we still laugh about it!

[Fenris]

5. We use snip because it indicates that part of article has been cut.

We aren't educated enough to use elipses.

[Endangered Specie]

6. Snip, as in snippet...

http://www.bartleby.com/61/17/S0511700.html

[Dirk39]

7. Thanks to all of you...

I thought, I've missed something.
Snip,
Dirk

[No2W2004]

8. The reason I use it,

On DU one is encouraged to post only 4 paragraphs from an article, then the link to it. Sometimes there is some interesting information further down, so I put (snip) to indicate I'm skipping ahead and no longer posting the article word for word. I use (snip) as if I'm cutting part of the article out with scissors.