What … means
… is a broken ellipsis (…): your text was saved as UTF-8 but read as Windows-1252. It's the ellipsis, …, a single character for three dots that many programs substitute when you type three full stops. In UTF-8 it's E2 80 A6, and Windows-1252 shows those bytes as â, € and ¦.
Byte by byte
| Byte | In UTF-8 | Windows-1252 shows |
|---|---|---|
| E2 | lead byte: 3 bytes in all | â |
| 80 | continuation byte | € |
| A6 | continuation byte | ¦ |
Byte by bytestringmash.com/mojibake/broken-ellipsis
Where you probably saw it
Interface text and messages such as "Loading…" or "Read more…".
Text typed on a phone or in a word processor, which often swaps three dots for the single ellipsis character.
Subject lines and previews in emails.
Related sequences
Text broken this way rarely has just one problem. — is a broken em dash, ’ is a broken apostrophe, “ is a broken opening quote. The mojibake fixer repairs all of them at once, and its table lists the rest.
Questions
What is …?
A broken ellipsis. The single ellipsis character … is E2 80 A6 in UTF-8, shown by Windows-1252 as â, € and ¦.
Should I use … or three dots?
Either is fine in most writing. Three full stops are plain ASCII, so they can never break this way.
Does the fixer change three dots into …?
No. Three full stops stay three full stops.
Sources
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