Referencing a hospital A&E in dialogue

I feel a bit silly for asking this, but as it happens, I've never had to write in fiction, until now, anything about A&E's, and I was wondering what the convention was for such an occurrence.

Currently, my character says: [FONT=&quot]"Given what happened in a and e the other day..."

[/FONT]But I thought it looked ridiculous. To go the full hog and have her say, '...in accident and emergency...' is overkill and not what she would normally say. So what's the correct way?

Punctuation? Capitalisation? Deletion?.. (Okay, maybe not that last one), or am I already doing it right and it's just me being picky?

Would appreciate some input.

Thanks in advance.

Rob.

PS. Given how many questions I've asked on here in the last week or so, I might end up just outsourcing my next project to the cheapest volunteer.

scarletpeaches said:

In the UK, wouldn't we say "In casualty..." ?

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Good question. Thinking about it properly, I suppose 'casualty' would be appropriate, however, I know for a fact that the Luton and Dunstable Hospital just round the corner form me is very clearly marked 'Accident & Emergency'.

If it is an Americanism, I guess it's one that has become fairly commonplace and is widely accepted as normal these days. I suppose that's why I immediately went for that phrase.

Kurtz said:

I always imagine it said "A&E", as if it is a single word. But if you're not going to go down that route best is probably "A and E". Not capitalising them just looks weird.

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Agreed on the caps. The reason I avoided using the ampersand is because I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate. A bit like when referring to currency, Instead of writing £10, it's preferred that it be put down as ten pounds.

I'll go with the caps unless someone has a better argument for switching to casualty or writing it in a nother method... Any takers?


[EDIT] Just seen AlleyCat's reply that appeared while typing everything above. That's interesting and well worth noting. Thank you. I guess I'll have to work it in somehow. After all, I'm not discouting the idea of one day getting published, and if I ever do, I'd like it to be accessible for other countries. I'm defintely outsourcing my next project.

I finished typing the project up and am now in the process of reading through and proofing.

This thread, the replies I've received, it's been educational. I had no idea A&E was such a new or unknown phrase.

I've restructered the offending sentence in such a way that I can use the full reference rather than a shortended version. I think it appears again later on though so will have to keep and eye out.

Thanks y'all!