Mind Your Language | 29 October 2005

In email addresses we find a punctuation mark /. There is a widespread and strong feeling against calling this a forward slash or just slash. The / once languished like the @ on the typewriter keyboard, seldom used except by the billing department (‘To one gross wingnuts @ 1/3 a dozen … 15/-’).

It was from its function of separating shillings (solidi) from pence (denarii) that the sign acquired its name of solidus. In the Middle Ages the same sign had been used in manuscripts in much the same way that we use a comma, and in this function it was called a virgula in Latin, because it looked like a rod or stick. The English version virgule is dated only to the 19th century by the Oxford English Dictionary. I suppose it retains that kind of use when it separates verses of poetry when they are run on in print instead of being presented in lines.

Slash sounds like an Americanism, and is also denounced by some as a Microsoftism. There is some controversy over the terminology within the BBC. In a thoughtful document called Working with BBC Radio 4 (updated October 2005) comes the statement, ‘It is BBC policy to say “slash Radio 4” not “forward slash Radio 4”.’ But I seem to remember that John Humphrys doesn’t like calling it slash at all.

Some listeners certainly hate it, probably because slash conjures up images of slashed faces. It is also a slang word for ‘an act of urination’ or the verb ‘urinate’. But now I learn of a meaning more unpleasant than either.

I am led to believe by the internet that slash fiction is the name for homosexual tales of couplings between fictional men.