: Re: How should I use phrases such as "uh huh"? I have seen various combinations of interjections (or "grunt words", as they are sometimes called) used in fictional dialogue, such as: uh huh (which

@Carla500

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Dialogue is the only place that it's appropriate to use informal language like this, in fact, if your character is someone who is generally informal and they are likely to speak like this it would seem incongruous in many cases if a character were to enunciate "Yes" or "no" clearly. Further, as to "nuh" being a word or not, who cares? In America, "nuh uh" is uttered frequently by children and adults who speak like children. Dialogue should reflect the way your character would actually speak, regardless if a prescriptivist would say that those words aren't real. Twain was the first american to write speech the way people actually spoke, it was considered groundbreaking at the time, and even now a great many authors don't do it. Your characters will seem more alive and real if they are seen to speak in the manner of real people, and the personal connection between your reader and your characters will be that much stronger.

Conveying the intention of the words to the reader is easy, as the person being spoken to will hopefully understand the intention, and so their reaction will clue the reader in to what was meant by the grunts. Personally I do my best never to pander to my readers and hit them over the head with explanations of every detail, and instead I rely on clues that allow me to "show them, not tell them." If a person in your book speaks like this often, you can start by spelling out "uh-huh" a few times, and then showing the reaction of the person being spoken to, then you can lead the reader in stages of less and less description, "Joseph grunted in the affirmative," "Joseph nodded yes and grunted his response," "Joseph grunted his usual affirmitive reply".

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