Slash Has History - Who Knew?

No, not Slash, top hat wearing guitarist for Guns N Roses, or slash, the kind of fanfic I know you thought of when you read this title, but slash, that little forwards or backwards symbol on your keyboard, next to the question mark and thing respectively.

(I can't believe that, like K, I'm actually devoting an entire post to punctuation.)

Oh come on, you know him: /. (Or his backwards brother \, who was born a few minutes later.)

Ah yes, you say. Him.* (Or, I suppose, them.)

My point (of the title) is, this little stroke of punctuation that serves the purpose of division and implication actually has a Wikipedia page, like just about everything else on the planet and whatever may be in outer space. (I can't remember how I discovered this; just clicking around Wikipedia, as per usual. Gemini would be proud.)

Did you know, for example, that this little guy is also called virgule, diagonal, stroke, forward slash, oblique dash, slant, separatrix, scratch comma, or whack? That it dates back to the days of Ancient Rome?

I've developed a fondness (from another friend, who started this last year) for saying the word "slash" in conversation, when indicating my use of the punctuation, eg: "I can't be bothered slash I don't want to slash I'm too tired," to the great ire of several other good friends. I was so enamoured with the word, I also learned how to say it in Spanish (raya), which I slipped into English conversation.

But what else can you say to denote him?

He might not be the prettiest punctuation on the keyboard, but he's a useful little fellow, probably more so than we realise, and he makes for some pretty groovy typefaces.

Probably my favourite use of punctuation, though, is this age-old, likely-mythological tale:

An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.

The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”

The women wrote: “Woman: without her, man is nothing.”

And that, class, concludes today's lesson in Punctuation Appreciation 101!


x
JAG


*He seems like a him, OK? Unlike, oh, I don't know, the feminine *, who loves to dress up for parties, or, um, ~, who likes long walks on the beach.