: Re: Acronym issue transitioning from prose to dialogue I am writing fiction. There is a group called the Mental Health Access and Referral Team. In prose, I can either use M-HART or MHART. In dialogue,

@Holmes449

Vote Up Vote Down

The style I default to is the AP, whether it's a work of fiction or not I prefer its readability and clarity. In this case, dispense with the hyphen, if you explicity need your audience to pronounce it "right" (in their heads), spell that out on second ref--completely define the acronym on first ref. The exception being extremely well-known ac's, such as the IRS. Apparently MHART is not in this class.

Here is how I'd introduce the organization--

The Matriarchal Harvest Alliance for Research and Tig-welding was one of the many political coalitions Bill railed against to anyone who would listen.

"The MHART (he pronounced it "em-heart,") is a complete sham," he said. "All they do is share recipes for egg-salad and program auto-dialers to scare low-income parts of South Chicago right before general elections."

(0)

Login to post a comment!