In a dialogue, how do you write that a character says a letter?
Since I don't know how to make the title less ambiguous, I will explain myself with examples.
Example 1: imagine that in a dialogue between two mathematicians, one reads aloud the following sentence from a paper:
"The variable x is greater than the variable y."
How would you write his dialog line? That is, complete the following:
"Hey, look at this." He said. "According to this paper, the variable ..."
Example 2: a character spells a word or abbreviation, such as 'TM1'.
I think all the following look awkward inside a dialogue line:
- "I liked the TM1 better."
- "I liked the T M one better."
- "I liked the tee em one better."
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1 answer
Honestly, I have no problem with writing single letters or numbers in dialogue, particularly if they are acronyms. All the following look fine to me:
- "The variable x is greater than the variable y."
- "I liked the TM1 better."
- "I drive a Mazda 2."
- "But there is no MI-6!"
- "Captain, the Klingons are at 132 mark 47."
- "Captain's log, Stardate 8130.3."
I have seen "Stardate eight one three zero point three," but that looks silly to me.
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