How to translate written shorthand to dialogue

Question

I have a character who's going to answer a question with "Either/or." She pronounces it simply either or, but I know some people pronounce the slash itself sometimes. How do I indicate explicitly how she pronounces it without awkwardly explaining it outside the dialogue?

With things like numbers, I'd just type out, for example, "Twenty-four twelve" or "Two four one two" to indicate pronunciation. And if she did pronounce the slash I'd do "Either slash or," or maybe "Either-slash-or." But I'm not sure how to indicate its absence.

Answer 1

The same way as in your examples, with hyphens, gives the least confusing text for your reader to interpret.

“Either-or.”

Writing dialogue is in part about getting your reader to accurately imagine what is said.