11 Jul
2016
11 Jul
'16
2:23 a.m.
On 09/07/2016 15:22, Doug McIlroy wrote:
If 19961 is the oldest citation the OED can come up
with, "slash"
really is a coinage of the computer age. Yet the character had
been in algebra books for centuries
1961 is about the time I was learning to type (in Britain), and I was
taught it as "slash". My mother - who was an excellent professional
typist but never had any contact with computers - almost always referred
to '/' as "slash". The one exception I can recall is in the usage
"...
and/or ..." where it was sometimes spoken as "... and or or ..."
(though often the first "or" was simply omitted).
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull