I Propose We Rename \ and /
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How 'bout \ -> left slash / -> right slash
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von Braun -
A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
They are still open to interpretation, the fall and rise for example, depends on the direction... How about Triangle Left and Triangle Right?
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
But then we still have trouble getting people to call the octothorpe the octothorpe. In the US lots of people still say "pound sign". Still others call the exclamation point the "bang". At the end of a sentance I'm used to saying that there is a period. I was asked how long of a period that my period was and adding that he was used to ending a sentance with a "full stop".
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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Some of your names are heavily biased toward left to right reading direction. If you are proposing new names, make them bidi agnostic. Remember that < is "greater than" for right to left readers. a < b "b is greater than a". How about / web slash, internet slash \ Windows slash If only keyboard makers would standardize and put them on the same key! Then we could have / - slash \ - shift+slash My nomenclature is / - slash (divide slash if other party is a programmer) \ - back slash Deep thought: Do right to left readers use left to right URLs?
englebart wrote:
Do right to left readers use left to right URLs?
Good question, and something I had never considered before. Seems the solution is to just switch the insertion point. People think it's a virus or bug when everything they type starts coming out backwards...moc.elgoog.www//:ptth because they accidently hit an odd key combination. (ctrl + left arrow in ie) As for the OP, for as long as I can recall, I have always fully qualified slashes both verbally and mentally as either '/ forwardslash' or '\ backslash' to avoid confusion. Occasionally, I still get a user that is unsure which is which so I have to reference by either 'above Enter' (beccause they sure won't know what a pipe is!) or 'right of period' or 'question mark'. When someone just says 'slash', I assume '/' unless the context requires otherwise...that, and 'Sweet Child 'o Mine' starts playing in my head!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
"The name of a thing does not matter as much as the quality of the thing." -WS The options given are all left to right (English reading order) biased. Put another way one person’s slide is another person’s hill. The Unicode tables refer to these as: / Solidus (with alternatives slash and virgule) \ Reverse Solidus (with alternative backslash) If you need to be explicit always refer to solidus as “a line moving from the bottom left to the top right of imaginary box enclosing the character” … or slash. Do that a couple of times and people will become “not confused”.
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considering the directions. the names could be. North West (NW) Slash or South East(SE) Slash for \ North East (NE) Slash or South West(SW) Slash for / There is no confusion now. From the suggested name we can know the direction and find the correct slash.
I'm not sure everyone can use those terms without a compass ;P (and then some may not even be able to if they have one...)
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How I teach: BACK slash is near the BACKspace. Done.
Hmm, on *my* keyboard it's next to the left shift key... ('/' is [shift]-7 on my keyboard, before you ask, or alternately on the numeric keypad (but don't think to make use of that, as some Laptops don't sport a numpad!) )
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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As the backslash leans backwards and the forward slash leans forwards my proposal would be to tell them to stop being a retard.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
ChrisElston wrote:
As the backslash leans backwards and the forward slash leans forwards my proposal would be to tell them to stop being a retard.
While I understand that English is the trade language of the day, the backslash only leans forward if it is facing the reader's right - if it is facing left, then the backslash leans forward (and obviously the forward slash leans backward.) It gets even worse if we include languages read top-to-bottom! To completely eliminate the possibility of confusion, some set of terms which is entirely absolute and non-relative must be constructed - which will, of course, entirely confuse everybody who already knows a slash from a backslash ...
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
I was about to suggest something along the lines of downslope|upslope, but after reading some of the comments about right to left reading I wondered if for these people that would work, since reading right to left implies a downward slope on '/' rather than upward... Referring to a clock's digits also doesn't seem right when there are so many ways to display time. It may work, but maybe it won't be easily grasped in some locales - I have no idea. The only thing I can think of that's universal, is mathematics: a mathematical 2D coordinate system typically uses a horizontal x-axis pointing to the right, and a vertical y axis pointing up. Graphs in a 2D coordinate systems are implicitely read left to right, in that a line coming from the upper left quadrant passing into the lower right is considered 'falling', or having a negative gradient, whereas a line running from the lower left to the upper right is considered to have a positive gradient. So we could call '\' downgrade and '/' upgrade. :cool: Ok, neg-gradient|pos-gradient would be more concise, but then not everyone's into math-speak. ;) Or maybe we just shorten this to down|up: we would loose the reference to math, but the only people potentially not getting it would be right-to-left readers, and I'm pretty sure they're more aware of that kind of interpretory problem than anyone else.
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
We could take a note from heraldry and go with: \ = "bend" / = "bend sinister", or just "sinister" ...
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I'm not sure everyone can use those terms without a compass ;P (and then some may not even be able to if they have one...)
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
Uphill slash downhill slash
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
It's simple. In English, we read from left to right, therefore, going right is going forward. That makes / the forward (leaning) slash, and \ the backslash. Renaming them will only spread the confusion.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
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A coworker was recently confused about which slash was the backslash and which was the forward slash. I propose we rename them, perhaps to one of these:
\
/
Slide Slash
Hill Slash
Five Slash
One Slash
Negative Slash
Positive Slash
Fall Slash
Rise Slash
Other ideas?
I read all the replies and also thought on RTL languages. Direction of writing could be different but not the direction itself. So, for everybody, right is right and left is left, top is top and bottom is bottom. Therefore, my suggestions are based on absolute directions: \ = TL (Top-Left) or LT (Left-Top) Slash / = BR (Bottom-Right) or RB (Right-Bottom) Slash However, more appropriate I think would be: / = NE (North-East) or EN (East-North) Slash \ = SW (North-West) or WN (West-North) Slash Or take the "North" common: / = E-Slash (NE Slash) \ = W-Slash (NW Slash) Also look at the keyboard; W and E keys are adjacent and W is at West side and E is at East side of each other!
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It's simple. In English, we read from left to right, therefore, going right is going forward. That makes / the forward (leaning) slash, and \ the backslash. Renaming them will only spread the confusion.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
Yeah, that's how I like to think of it, though it does take the assumption that it's leaning and not swinging.
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Yeah, that's how I like to think of it, though it does take the assumption that it's leaning and not swinging.