R&R is what most folk recognize it as i think, R and R seems a bit disjointed to me. Both would work though. You could use italics for it too
What is "R&R"? R&R reads faster and feels more like a unit to me. R and R sounds a bit more disjointed, if that makes any sense. Maybe R 'n' R or RnR could work as well, depending on the dialect of the speaker?
Military talk for rest and relaxation/recuperation/recreation. Also called "rec time" or "reccy". Essentially a soldiers free time.
I'm hesitant about leaving '&' in dialogue. It looks weird, doesn't it? not looking very phonetic, that's why I wondered if it should be R and R. R'n'R sounds ok, too I suppose. Or would it be better to just make the character say something else?
How much people do you reckon actually knows of the abbreviation? I googled it and found quite a few different meanings ("rest and recuperation", "recent and relevant", "rock and roll", etc.), so it might be confusing however you write it. Maybe...
to be honest i thought it was quite common, its a common phrase in military films etc also with context it should be quite obvious.
Apparently not my military films... And yeah, context should make it clear. But maybe it's safer just to go without it if it's possible, though if the character is military the term should probably be kept (but maybe clarified somehow, like mentioning it as "rest and relaxation" once before abbreviating it).
Liberty might work, thanks. @T.Trian and I made up the mil force, so in that sense it's not tied to a specific branch, except we wouldn't want to use terms that are too specific for certain branches. I was also thinking along these lines: Would rec time make people think of recording? How about rack time? Too much pun? ETA: Oh, and there's no reason to be intentionally obscure, so in that sense something that is as clear as possible yet also as authentic as possible would be best, so in that sense liberty might be a good substitute, and then there'd be no need to mess around with the visual awkwardness of R&R.
You would spell it out. The only exception I can think of is if the "&" is part of a company name (i.e., "AT&T").
Pfft, our military is equally useless. And no, it's not just you. It's a common grievance, I'd say, to anybody who's writing anything that employs acronyms, be it, say, mil sci-fi or some thriller with government agents 'cause you have to also be able to keep things clear for the reader without sacrificing realism. Usually context helps, and of course if one is used to reading the genre... Or if they can be arsed to google the term(s), but even then, as you pointed out; multiple results. In one novel the author kept throwing recce around. I was like, ok, so you don't say recon anymore? Has Hollywood lied to me?! I would've gotten that! But I couldn't fathom the meaning, not even from the context, and had to google it. Can't really expect the reader to do that.
In US military terms, R&R (rest and relaxation) usually describes a one or two week period away from a combat zone, usually in a nearby non-combat resort-ish area. Liberty is a term to describe time off (usually a weekend) from duties on a base to which the soldier/sailor/airman/Marine is permanently assigned. If the sailor is serving aboard a ship that is in port, it's called shore leave. Leave is an extended period of time away from a permanent assignment, similar to a civilian vacation. I believe US military personnel still get thirty days leave per year. I wouldn't use R&R at all in your example, but if I did it would be 'R and R'.
Thanks. Spelling-wise the time period doesn't matter in my example, but thanks for pointing it out. It could be 'next month', the sentence isn't from the MS, but I know one of these terms will appear there. I was wondering how R&R should appear in dialogue from the editorial POV.
It looks better with the ampersand, in my opinion. R&R is the abbreviation most people would recognize.
Thanks everyone, we'll mull this over a bit. dialogue vs narration differences are sometimes a bit fuzzy...
Yeah, basically I was just after what would an editor possibly say 'cause it seems there's less leeway.
I'd just use R&R. It's common enough, and you can follow it up with a brief mention of what it would involve, like sleeping in, going away, whatever the character considers to be 'R&R'. Not everything needs to be known to the reader, they can learn something too
