8 Jul
2016
8 Jul
'16
5:47 a.m.
On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
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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Nemo <cym224(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog(a)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.