Acronyms in dialogue question

[SandraMustard]

I spell out all numbers in dialogue but I don't spell out titles (eg. Mrs. not Missus). This isn't formal writing and reading flow with understanding is the key. In this case, I want to quote a character saying the term ED. I Googled for an answer but didn't find a definitive one. I expect Pilot to give the formal CMS answer but want to hear less formal suggestions as well.

Would you simply use 'ED' or spell it phonetically like 'ee dee'? The latter looks clumsy so it answers my question. One possibility hubby suggested was separating the letters like 'E D' or 'E-D'.

 

[oggbashan]

I spell out all numbers in dialogue but I don't spell out titles (eg. Mrs. not Missus). This isn't formal writing and reading flow with understanding is the key. In this case, I want to quote a character saying the term ED. I Googled for an answer but didn't find a definitive one. I expect Pilot to give the formal CMS answer but want to hear less formal suggestions as well.

Would you simply use 'ED' or spell it phonetically like 'ee dee'? The latter looks clumsy so it answers my question. One possibility hubby suggested was separating the letters like 'E D' or 'E-D'.

I think either of your husband's suggestions would work.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would go with ED....I simply can't see this in a story

"What, you have vee dee?"

As for Mrs. I don't recall seeing authors use "Misses" to sound it out.

Unless in dialogue as in "How's the missus feelin'?"

 

[SandraMustard]

I would go with ED....I simply can't see this in a story

"What, you have vee dee?"

As for Mrs. I don't recall seeing authors use "Misses" to sound it out.

Unless in dialogue as in "How's the missus feelin'?"

One instance is: "Have you tried pills for your E-D, Jack?"

ETA: Casual conversations speak acronyms more than full meanings.

 

[lovecraft68]

One instance is: "Have you tried pills for your E-D, Jack?"

I'd still do ED only because I am figuring most people know what you mean and you're not asking if he takes pills for a guy named Ed, especially seeing the name Ed has a lower case d

...or, depending on the character,

"You know they make pills to help with that limp dick of yours."

Oops a little LW cuck sliding out there....

 

[elfin_odalisque]

You mix acronyms with abbreviations. Mrs., Ms. (not even an abbreviation), Dr., etc. The full word for Mrs. is mistress, not missus.

Would you dream of writing out in full the acronyms radar, UN AIDS etc.

 

[lovecraft68]

You mix acronyms with abbreviations. Mrs., Ms. (not even an abbreviation), Dr., etc. The full word for Mrs. is mistress, not missus.

Would you dream of writing out in full the acronyms radar, UN AIDS etc.

Mrs. is mistress?

So my Mom is Mistress *****?

 

[legerdemer]

Mrs. is mistress?

So my Mom is Mistress *****?

Yep; Mistress Lovecraft - nice ring to it.



And I'd also go with ED. The context will make it clear, no?

 

[oggbashan]

Mrs. is mistress?

So my Mom is Mistress *****?

The full term was still used in Shakespeare's time e.g. Mistress Quickly. The Concise Oxford calls it 'Archaic' or 'Dialect' for Mrs.

'Missus' was originally a servant's short form for addressing the Lady of the household. The Concise Oxford calls it an abbreviation of Mistress.

Mrs is defined as a title before a married woman's surname origin 'mistress' see 'missus'.

The French still make the distinction: Madame, Maitresse and Mademoiselle.

 

[SandraMustard]

You mix acronyms with abbreviations. Mrs., Ms. (not even an abbreviation), Dr., etc. The full word for Mrs. is mistress, not missus.

Would you dream of writing out in full the acronyms radar, UN AIDS etc.

It wasn't a bad example of acronyms, but meant as a comparison of other word types appearing in dialogue (note I mentioned numbers, too.) Your answer adds support to another answer that the capitalization conveys the dialogue word is the acronym, some of which are spelled (ED) when spoken, some are pronounced (AIDS). Readability was my concern, more so than pure style.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Would ED really be E.D. Maybe not.

 

[49greg]

You mix acronyms with abbreviations. Mrs., Ms. (not even an abbreviation), Dr., etc. The full word for Mrs. is mistress, not missus.

Would you dream of writing out in full the acronyms radar, UN AIDS etc.

Huh, I always thought Miss was short for Mistress. Who knew. So now I have the question, what is Miss short for?

As for the ED question, I would go with either just plain ED or E D or E-D. Anyone with a TV will have heard countless adverts referring to ED, so it should be easily recognized.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Miss is used as a convention title of courtesy preceding the name of an unmarried or girl.

 

[robertreams]

I think serious consideration on how you use Mrs. in dialog needs to be given to how you want your character to sound. Mizz, missus, misses, Ma'am. These days, in the U.S. we seem to have lost the ability to use respectful address to anyone. Even foreigners I have never met seem to assume the right to call me Teem. (tim), so using Mrs. may come off quite stilted n your dialog. i strive in my dialog to make my characters sound as real as possible. Almost no one says "Misses" anymore.

As for ED, I think it is okay, if supported by content. You may wish to use more simple terms or more erotic terms. I certainly would not spell out erectile dysfunction every time. Doing that will probably cause it to happen to your readers. In short, do what works on second or third reading.

 

[sr71plt]

Titles like Mrs., Ms., and Mr. can be abbreviated in dialogue when preceding a name. If alone, it should be missus (yes, it's in Webster's. If you are writing for an American audience, mistress would be misleading in most contexts. Don't know about a British audience) or mister. It should be miss unless your character has a political point about Ms., in which case you could get away with ms. (Note these are lower cased. They would be lower cased in the indefinite but initial capped in the direct name substitute. Thus. "The missus and I are going to take in a movie tonight." "Don't let the missus hear you say that." "Don't let Missus hear you say that." There's a difference between the last two. The "the" in the first of these examples makes the use indefinite.)

Initials for something like ED (pronounced in dialog as ee dee) should be rendered ED. And AIDS (pronounced "aids" in dialogue) rendered as AIDS. A lot of these are listed in the dictionary without periods (AIDS is listed in the dictionary, ED isn't) and will give you comfort that not using periods is fine.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Titles like Mrs., Ms., and Mr. can be abbreviated in dialogue when preceding a name. If alone, it should be missus (yes, it's in Webster's. If you are writing for an American audience, mistress would be misleading in most contexts. Don't know about a British audience) or mister. It should be miss unless your character has a political point about Ms., in which case you could get away with ms. (Note these are lower cased. They would be lower cased in the indefinite but initial capped in the direct name substitute. Thus. "The missus and I are going to take in a movie tonight." "Don't let the missus hear you say that." "Don't let Missus hear you say that." There's a difference between the last two. The "the" in the first of these examples makes the use indefinite.)

Initials for something like ED (pronounced in dialog as ee dee) should be rendered ED. And AIDS (pronounced "aids" in dialogue) rendered as AIDS. A lot of these are listed in the dictionary without periods (AIDS is listed in the dictionary, ED isn't) and will give you comfort that not using periods is fine.

Gosh, I nearly agree with you.

I accept that 'master and mistress' have fallen into disuse, except in Lit historic stories and BDSM, yet the form 'missus' is a phonetic back- formation from Mrs.

Most wives would surely be offended if they started receiving business letters addressed to 'missus' xyz.

From what I've read here, writers seem to prefer 'wife' to 'missus', which seems too British to me.

 

[sr71plt]

Gosh, I nearly agree with you.

I accept that 'master and mistress' have fallen into disuse, except in Lit historic stories and BDSM, yet the form 'missus' is a phonetic back- formation from Mrs.

Most wives would surely be offended if they started receiving business letters addressed to 'missus' xyz.

From what I've read here, writers seem to prefer 'wife' to 'missus', which seems too British to me.

The question is how to render terms in dialogue in fiction, not what to put in a business letter.

 

[SandraMustard]

...

Initials for something like ED (pronounced in dialog as ee dee) should be rendered ED. And AIDS (pronounced "aids" in dialogue) rendered as AIDS. A lot of these are listed in the dictionary without periods (AIDS is listed in the dictionary, ED isn't) and will give you comfort that not using periods is fine.

'Rendered' sounds so authoritative, exactly what I sought. Acronym rendering in dialogue was the only advice I sought. I mentioned the other things to point out different conventions for them. As happens in the AH, side discussions take on a life of their own.

I'm still left wondering how the pronunciation differences are rendered. AIDS is pronounced as a word, ED is pronounced letter by letter. To render the difference in quoted dialogue, my mind wants to write E-D. I'm probably over-thinking this.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm still left wondering how the pronunciation differences are rendered. AIDS is pronounced as a word, ED is pronounced letter by letter. To render the difference in quoted dialogue, my mind wants to write E-D. I'm probably over-thinking this.

Probably are overthinking it, because that use of a hyphen doesn't exist in English usage, so rendering it that way should confuse the reader. (There could be a company name "E-D," of course, but that would be entirely different from ED.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

Initials for something like ED (pronounced in dialog as ee dee) should be rendered ED. And AIDS (pronounced "aids" in dialogue) rendered as AIDS. A lot of these are listed in the dictionary without periods (AIDS is listed in the dictionary, ED isn't) and will give you comfort that not using periods is fine.

Not expecting there to be an official answer to this, but I'm curious about the process whereby an pronounceable acronym becomes a common noun: e.g. laser, radar, scuba all started out as acronyms but are no longer capitalised that way.

The Guardian has a peculiar house style rule: any acronym that's usually pronounced as a word but hasn't made it to common-noun status gets capitalised as a proper noun i.e. first letter only. So, "BDSM" gets full caps because we spell it out, but "Aids", "Unesco", etc etc. I find it very jarring; I haven't encountered any other publisher that uses it.

 

[sr71plt]

The process is started by usage and completed by being accepted as a word into dictionaries.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

The question is how to render terms in dialogue in fiction, not what to put in a business letter.


My point was that 'Mrs.' is an universally accepted descriptive that everybody reads without a blink. Testosterone filled High School grads call their girlfriends' mothers Mrs. xyz, not missus xyz.

Mrs. is a perfect way to render certain types of dialogue.

 

[sr71plt]

The question is how to render terms in dialogue in fiction, not what to put in a business letter.


My point was that 'Mrs.' is an universally accepted descriptive that everybody reads without a blink. Testosterone filled High School grads call their girlfriends' mothers Mrs. xyz, not missus xyz.

Mrs. is a perfect way to render certain types of dialogue.

Well, we disagree and you don't cite anything/anyone but yourself.

You also posted that missus wasn't an accepted expansion of Mrs., and Webster's disagrees with you too.

Anyone who wants to accept you as an authority on anything certainly is welcome to do so.

 

[Hypoxia]

Anglish can be misused in many ways in formal and informal writing and speech. Any specific usage is bound to piss-off *somebody*. Enjoy the reactions.

Archaic formations in contemporary speech or informal dialogue may be inserted for effect, to be coy or sarcastic or whatever. "So good to see you, Mistress Monroe," I muttered to the landlady as I tried to sidle past. I'm late on the rent again. Shit. She's Mistress, not Mrs. -- any abbreviation would be wrong there.

But I might speak or write an abbreviation thus: I looked at the barkeep holding up a phone receiver. "Tell the M-R-S that I ain't here, okay, Moe?" Like that would fool her. Writing that as Emm Arr Ess would be rather confusing, eh?

 

[SamScribble]

Many British editors distinguish between acronyms – words formed by the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a single word (VAT, NATO, laser, etc) – and initialisms – collections of initial letters that are not pronounced as a word but as a string of letters (IT, MRI, FBI, etc). Under this ‘rule’, ED would be considered to be an initialism. To qualify as an acronym it would need to be pronounced ed, as in Mister Ed, the talking horse.