Let's say someone said, "I didn't visit him yesterday.". As a response to that, can I say "You should have." to mean "You should have visited him."?
1 Answer
This comment by @Michael Rybkin is correct.
they call it an ellipsis. Look it up.
Try here.
BTW, your periods in the final sentence are wrong. They are ending a sentence that you want to continue. Most(*) would write:
As a response to that, can I say "You should have" to mean "You should have visited him"?
(*) Some style guides differ on whether quotes and dialogue are always punctuated the same.
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1Thanks. As far as I know, there is no rigid rule about that using or not using a period at the end of a quotation thing. Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 15:11
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I would say there is a very rigid rule that a period followed by and end-quote mark ends a sentence. However, multiple sentences ended by periods are allowed within one set of quote marks. Question marks and exclamation marks instead are optional: they may end the sentence but will not always do so. Commented Dec 4, 2018 at 21:26