[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>>> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>>>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>>>>
>>>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>>>
>>>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>>>
>>> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
>>> French word for comma, and OED states:
>>>
>>>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
>>>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
>>>    same value as the modern comma).
>>
>> On the other hand, the OED has the following.
>>
>> slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
>>
>> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
>> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
>> shilling-mark.

This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
entry is interesting.

>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>
> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.

Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
those in the know.

Greg
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