Slash (punctuation)
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Slash or solidus | |||||||
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The slash is the oblique slanting line
A slash in the reverse direction \ is known as a backslash.
History
Slashes may be found in early writing as a variant form of
In the 18th century, the mark was generally known in English as the "
Usage
Disjunction and conjunction
Connecting alternatives
The slash is commonly used in many languages as a shorter substitute for the
Such slashes may be used to avoid taking a position in
In particular, since the late 20th century, the slash is used to permit more
Connecting non-contrasting items
The slash is also used as a shorter substitute for the conjunction "and" or
Presenting routes
The slash, as a form of inclusive or, is also used to punctuate the stages of a route (e.g.,
Introducing topic shifts
The word slash is also developing as a way to introduce topic shifts or follow-up statements. Slash can introduce a follow-up statement, such as, "I really love that hot dog place on Liberty Street. Slash can we go there tomorrow?" It can also indicate a shift to an unrelated topic, as in "JUST SAW ALEX! Slash I just chubbed on oatmeal raisin cookies at north quad and i miss you." The new usage of "slash" appears most frequently in spoken conversation, though it can also appear in writing.[16]
In speech
Sometimes the word slash is used in speech as a
Mathematics
Fractions
The fraction slash ⟨ ⁄⟩ is used between two numbers to indicate a
Many fonts draw the fraction slash (and the division slash) less vertical than the slash. The separate encoding is also intended to permit automatic formatting of the preceding and succeeding digits by glyph substitution with numerator and denominator glyphs (e.g., display of "1, fraction slash, 2" as "½"),
This notation can also be used when the concept of fractions is extended from numbers to arbitrary rings by the method of
Division
The division slash ⟨ ∕⟩, equivalent to the
Quotient of set
A quotient of a set is informally a new set obtained by identifying some elements of the original set. This is denoted as a fraction (sometimes even as a built fraction), where the numerator is the original set (often equipped with some algebraic structure). What is appropriate as denominator depends on the context.
In the most general case, the denominator is an equivalence relation on the original set , and elements are to be identified in the quotient if they are equivalent according to ; this is technically achieved by making the set of all equivalence classes of .
In group theory, the slash is used to mark quotient groups. The general form is , where is the original group and is the normal subgroup; this is read " mod ", where "mod" is short for "
When the original set is the set of integers , the denominator may alternatively be just an integer: . This is an alternative notation for the set of integers modulo n (needed because is also notation for the very different ring of n-adic integers). is an abbreviation of or , which both are ways of writing the set in question as a quotient of groups.
Combining slash
Slashes may also be used as a combining character in mathematical formulae. The most important use of this is that combining a slash with a relation negates it, producing e.g. 'not equal' as negation of or 'not in' as negation of ; these slashed relation symbols are always implicitly defined in terms of the non-slashed base symbol. The graphical form of the negation slash is mostly the same as for a division slash, except in some cases where that would look odd; the negation of (divides) and negation of (various meanings) customarily both have their negations slashes less steep and in particular shorter than the usual one.
The
Computing
The slash, sometimes distinguished as "forward slash", is used in computing in a number of ways, primarily as a separator among levels in a given hierarchy, for example in the path of a filesystem.
File paths
The slash is used as the path component separator in many computer operating systems (e.g., Unix's pictures/image.png). In Unix and Unix-like systems, such as macOS and Linux, the slash is also used for the volume root directory (e.g., the initial slash in /usr/john/pictures). Confusion of the slash with the backslash ⟨\⟩ largely arises from the use of the latter as the path component separator in the widely used MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows systems.[9][10]
Networking
The slash is used in a similar fashion in internet
The slash in an
Programming
The slash is used as a division operator in most programming languages while APL uses it for reduction (fold) and compression (filter). The double slash is used by Rexx as a modulo operator, and Python (starting in version 2.2) uses a double slash for division which rounds (using floor) to an integer. In Raku the double slash is used as a "defined-or" alternative to ||. A dot and slash ⟨./⟩ is used in MATLAB and GNU Octave to indicate an element-by-element division of matrices.
, and JavaScript to start a single line comment.In
In a style originating in the
Slashes are used as the standard delimiters for regular expressions, although other characters can be used instead.
Programs
The
Currency
The slash (as the "shilling mark" or "solidus")[26] was an abbreviation for the shilling, a former coin of the United Kingdom and its former colonies. Before the decimalisation of currency in Britain, its currency abbreviations (collectively £sd) represented their Latin names, derived from a medieval French modification of the late Roman libra, solidus, and denarius.[27] Thus, one penny less than two pounds was written £1 19s. 11d. During the period when English orthography included the long s, ſ, the ſ came to be written as a single slash.[28][29] The s. and the d. might therefore be omitted, and "2/6" meant "two shillings and sixpence".[26] Amounts in full pounds, shillings and pence could be written in many different ways, for example: £1 9s 6d, £1.9.6, £1-9-6, and even £1/9/6d (with a slash used also to separate pounds and shillings).[30] The same style was also used under the British Raj and early independent India for the predecimalization rupee/anna/pie system.[31]
In five East African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia, and the de facto country of Somaliland), where the national currencies are denominated in shillings, the decimal separator is a slash mark (e.g., 2/50). Where the minor unit is zero, an equals sign is used (e.g., 5/=).
Dates
Slashes are a common
Because of the world's many varying
In English, a range marked by a slash often has a separate meaning from one marked by a dash or hyphen.
Numbering
The slash is used in numbering to note totals. For example, "page 17/35" indicates that the relevant passage is on the 17th page of a 35-page document. Similarly, the marking "#333/500" on a product indicates it is the 333rd out of 500 identical products or out of a batch of 500 such products. For scores on schoolwork, in games, and so on, "85/100" indicates 85 points were attained out of a possible 100.
Slashes are also sometimes used to mark ranges in numbers that already include hyphens or dashes. One example is the
Linguistic transcription
A pair of slashes (as "
In
Single and double slashes are often used as typographic substitutes for the
Poetry
The slash is used in various scansion notations for representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse, typically to indicate a stressed syllable.
Line breaks
The slash (as a "virgule") offset by spaces to either side is used to mark line breaks when transcribing text from a multi-line format into a single-line one.[11][34] It is particularly common in quoting poetry, song lyrics, and dramatic scripts, formats where omitting the line breaks risks losing meaningful context. For example, here is a part of Hamlet's soliloquy:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them...
If someone wanted to quote the above soliloquy in a prose paragraph, it is standard to mark the line breaks as follows: "To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous
The virgule may be thinner than a standard slash when typeset. In computing contexts, it may be necessary to use a non-breaking space before the virgule to prevent it from being widowed on the next line.
Abbreviation
The slash has become standard in several abbreviations. Generally, it is used to mark two-letter
The slash in
In the
Proofreading
The slash or vertical bar (as a "
Fiction
The slash is used in
Libraries
The slash is used under the
- Gone with the Wind / by Margaret Mitchell.
- Star Trek II. The Wrath of Khan [videorecording] / Paramount Pictures.
The format is used in both
Addresses
The slash is sometimes used as an abbreviation for building numbers. For example, in some contexts,[where?] 8/A Evergreen Gardens specifies Apartment 8 in Building A of the residential complex Evergreen Gardens. In the United States, however, such an address refers to the first division of Apartment 8 and is simply a variant of Apartment 8A or 8-A. Similarly in the United Kingdom, an address such as 12/2 Anywhere Road means flat (or apartment) 2 in the building numbered 12 on Anywhere Road.
The slash is also used in the United States in the postal abbreviation for "care of." For example, Judy Smith c/o Bob Smith could be used when Bob Smith is receiving mail on Judy's behalf. Typically, this would be used in a situation where someone is either out of town, in an institution or hotel, or temporarily staying at another's address.
Music
Slashes are used in musical notation as an alternative to writing out specific notes where it is easier to read than traditional notation or where the player can improvise. They are commonly used to indicate chords either in place of or in combination with traditional notation and for drummers as an indication to continue with the previously indicated style.
Sports
A slash is used to mark a spare (knocking down all ten pins in two throws) when scoring ten-pin and duckpin bowling.[37]
Text messaging
In online messaging, a slash might be used to imitate the formatting of a chat command (e.g., writing "/fliptable" as though there were such a command) or the closing tags of languages such as HTML (e.g., writing "/endrant" to end a diatribe or "/s" to mark the preceding text as
Before an e-signature
In legal writing, especially in a pleading, attorneys often sign their name with an S that is enclosed by slashes and preceding the attorney's name.[38] An example would be the following:
/s/ Bob Smith
Attorney for Plaintiff
As a letter
The Iraqw language of Tanzania uses the slash as a letter, representing the voiced pharyngeal fricative, as in /ameeni, "woman".[39]
Spacing
There are usually no spaces either before or after a slash. According to
According to The Chicago Manual of Style, when typesetting a URL or computer path, line breaks should occur before a slash but not in the text between two slashes.[42]
Encoding
As a very common character, the slash (as "slant") was originally encoded in ASCII with the decimal code 47 or 0x2F.[43] The same value was used in Unicode
- U+002F / SOLIDUS
- U+0337 ̷ COMBINING SHORT SOLIDUS OVERLAY (for strikethrough)
- U+0338 ̸ COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY (for strikethrough)
- U+2044 ⁄ FRACTION SLASH
- U+2215 ∕ DIVISION SLASH
- U+2571 ╱ BOX DRAWINGS LIGHT DIAGONAL UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT
- U+29F8 ⧸ BIG SOLIDUS
- U+FF0F / FULLWIDTH SOLIDUS (fullwidth version of solidus)
- U+1F67C 🙼 VERY HEAVY SOLIDUS
In XML and HTML, the slash can also be represented with the character entity /
or the numeric character reference /
or /
.[44]
Alternative names
Name | Used for |
---|---|
diagonal | An uncommon name for the slash in all its uses,[3] |
division slash | This is the Unicode Consortium's formal name for the variant of the slash used to mark division.[45] (U+2215 ∕ DIVISION SLASH) |
forward slash | A back-formations as reverse backslash.[46]
|
fraction slash | This is the Unicode Consortium's formal name for the low slash used to mark fractions. fraction bar, although this more commonly refers to the horizontal bar style, as in 1/2. When used as a fraction bar, this form of the mark is less vertical than an ASCII slash, generally close to 45° and kerned on both sides;[47] this use is distinguished by Unicode as the fraction slash.[45] (This use is sometimes mistakenly described as the sole meaning of "solidus", with its use as a shilling mark and slash distinguished under the name "virgule".[47][48] )
|
oblique | A formerly common name for the slash in all its uses.[3] Also oblique stroke,[49][50] oblique dash, etc. |
scratch comma | A modern name for the virgule's historic use as a form of comma.[51] |
separatrix | Originally, the proofreader's marginalia to denote the intended replacement for a letter or word struckthrough in proofed text[52] or to separate margin notes.[53] Sometimes misapplied to virgules.
|
shilling mark | A development of the |
slant | From its shape, an infrequent name except (as slants) in its use to mark pronunciations off from other text[54] and as the original ASCII name of the character.[43] Also slant line(s) or bar(s).[9] |
slash mark | An alternative name used to distinguish the punctuation mark from the word's other senses.[55] |
slat | An uncommon name for the slash used by the esoteric programming language INTERCAL.[50] Also slak.[50] |
solidus | Another name for the mark (derived from the Latin form of 'shilling'), also applied to other slashes separating numbers or letters, as their formal name for the ASCII slash ("slant"). (U+002F / SOLIDUS)
The solidus's use as a division sign is distinguished as the division slash.[45] |
stroke | A contraction of the phrase telegraphy.[49] It is particularly employed in reading the mark out loud: "he stroke she" is a common British reading of "he/she". "Slash" has, however, become common in Britain in computing contexts, while some North American amateur radio enthusiasts employ the British "stroke". Less frequently, "stroke" is also used to refer to hyphens.[9]
|
virgule | A development of virgula ("twig"), anglicized in British sources as the virgil.[2]
|
The slash may also be read out as and, or, and/or, to, or cum in some compounds separated by a slash; over or out of in fractions, division, and numbering; and per or a(n) in derived units (as km/h) and prices (as $~/kg), where the division slash stands for "each".[9][57]
See also
- Strikethrough, including slashes through figures
- Feynman slash notation in physics, which employs slash-like strikethroughs
- Inequality sign, an equals sign with a slash-like strikethrough
Notes
- ^ Nevertheless, the word was already being used in official publications, such as the 1947 style guide of the US Department of Agriculture Forestry Service.[8]
- New Hart's Rules.[36]
References
- ^ a b c "Virgule". Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. XII (Corrected reissue ed.). Oxford University Press. 1933. p. 235.
- ^ ISBN 9781134942244.
- ^ a b c "oblique, adj., n., and adv.". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.
- ^ "diagonal, adj. and n.". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1895.
- ^ a b Bradley, Henry (1914). "shilling, n.". In Murray, James A. H. (ed.). Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. VIII (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 697.
1. An English money of account, since the Norman Conquest of the value of 12 pence or 1/20 of a pound sterling. Abbreviated s. (__ L. solidus: see SOLIDUS), formerly also sh., shil.; otherwise denoted by the sign /- after the numeral.
- ^ a b c "solidus". The Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. X (sole–sz). 1913. p. 401 – via Internet Archive.
2. a sloping line used to separate shillings from pence. A shilling mark.
- ^ Compare "Slash (n)". Webster's Third New International Dictionary. 1961. with "Slash (n)". Webster's New American dictionary : completely new and up to date. 1947.
- ^ Larson, E. vH (1947). Style Manual for publications. US Department of Agriculture Forestry Service. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Hartman, Jed (27 December 2011). "A Slash by Any Other Name". Neology. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
- ^ a b c Turton, Stuart (15 October 2009). "Berners-Lee: web address slashes were 'a mistake'". PC Pro. Archived from the original on 4 November 2011. Retrieved 21 September 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Waddingham, Anne, ed. (2014). "Solidi and verticals". New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 4.13.
- ^ a b The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2016. 6.104.
- ISBN 8520911374.
- ^ "Coleção Números Polêmicos" (PDF). NumPol.com (in Portuguese). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
- ^ Fernando de Souza, Robson (27 February 2004). "A proposta do Português com Inclusão de Gênero". Consciência Efervescente (in Portuguese). Retrieved 24 July 2012.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Curzan, Anne (24 April 2013). "Slash: Not Just a Punctuation Mark Anymore". The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Lingua Franca" column. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013.
- ^ "YouTube video: "Back Like I Never Left - Jourdan River Vacation House Hive Removal"". YouTube. Archived from the original on 21 February 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
- ^ YouTube video "Drone laying hive building up and getting new equipment" Archived 3 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine at time 9:16
- ^ "The Terror Duck - Gastornis at time 5:30". YouTube. Archived from the original on 6 November 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
- ^ a b Miller, Jeff (22 December 2014). "Fractions". Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 15 February 2016 – via Tripod.com.
- ^ ISBN 0226183718.
- ^ Smith, D. E. (1908). Rara Arithmetica. Boston: Ginn & Co. – via Internet Archive.
- ISBN 9781936213016. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 July 2015. Retrieved 30 May 2018.)
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help - ^ "Number Forms" (PDF). The Unicode Standard (12.1 ed.). Unicode Consortium. 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 November 2019. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
- ^ De Morgan, Augustus (1845). "The Calculus of Functions". Encyclopædia Metropolitana. London: B. Fellowes et al.
- ^ a b Fowler, Francis George (1917). "solidus". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. p. 829 – via Internet Archive.
sǒ·lidus, n. (pl. -di). (Hist.) gold coin introduced by Roman Emperor Constantine; (only in abbr. s.) shilling(s), as 7s. 6d., £1 1s.; the shilling line (for ſ or long s) as in 7/6. [LL use of L SOLIDus]
- OCLC 835683007. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2014. See also Carolingian monetary system.
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (13th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 1982. p. 676.
- Bibcode:1994ssfc.book.....S.
- ^ "Manuscripts and special Collections: Money". University of Nottingham. Archived from the original on 12 March 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- ^ Pandey, Anshuman (7 October 2007). "Proposal to Encode North Indic Number Forms in ISO/IEC 10646" (PDF). University of Michigan. p. 8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 May 2012.
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2016. 6.106.
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2016. 6.105.
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2016. 13.27.
- ^ Shakespeare. Hamlet. Act III, Scene II.
- ^ Waddingham, Anne, ed. (2014). "Marking Proofs". New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2.4.
- ^ "Scoring Duckpin Bowling". Duckpins.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023.
- ^ "What Does /s/ Mean in a Signature and Why is It Used?". BizCounsel. L. & F. Brown. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
- ^ Henry R. T. Muzale, Josephat M. Rugemalira, Researching and Documenting the Languages of Tanzania (2008): "Iraqi orthography includes two letters not used in writing Kiswa-hili, q for the voiceless uvular stop, and x for the voiceless velar fricative. It also uses symbols that are not even part of the Roman alphabet, including a slash / for the pharyngeal fricative, and an apostrophe ' for the glottal stop (Mous et al. 2002)."
- ^ "Punctuation - FAQ Item [CMOS 6.104]". The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Archived from the original on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- ^ "7.02 Spacing, 9.06". btb.termiumplus.gc.ca. Translation Bureau, Public Works and Government Services Canada. 8 October 2009. Archived from the original on 8 November 2018. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
- ^ The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2016. 7.42.
- ^ a b Cerf, Vint (16 October 1969). "RFC20: ASCII format for Network Interchange". Internet Engineering Task Force. Archived from the original on 8 December 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
- ^ "Character Codes – HTML Codes, Hexadecimal Codes & HTML Names". character-code.com. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
- ^ a b c d e "C0 Controls and Basic Latin" (PDF). Unicode.org. Unicode Cosortium. 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 September 2023.
- ^ Example of usage of "reverse backslash": Fordraiders (4 October 2014). "Regex pattern to delete a pattern i need for forward backslash and reverse backslash". Experts Exchange. Archived from the original on 16 April 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-88179-206-5.
- ^ a b Klein, Samuel John (3 March 2006). "Typography Words of the Day: Slashes". Designorati. Archived from the original on 24 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
- ^ a b "stroke, n.¹". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1919.
- ^ a b c Howe, Denis (1996). "oblique stroke". Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing. Archived from the original on 9 June 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
- ^ "scratch, n.¹". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1911.
- ^ "separatrix, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1912.
- ^ "separatrix". Merriam-Webster Online. Archived from the original on 8 July 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
- ^ "slant, n.¹". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1911.
- ^ "Slash (n)". Webster's Third New International Dictionary. 1961.
5 also slash mark: DIAGONAL : 4
- ^ "Unicode 1.1 Composite Name List, including default properties". Unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. 5 July 1995. Archived from the original on 16 May 2023.
- ^ "Slash". The Punctuation Guide. Archived from the original on 12 May 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2016.