Mind Your Language | 29 October 2005

In email addresses we find a punctuation mark /. There is a widespread and strong feeling against calling this a forward slash or just slash. The / once languished like the @ on the typewriter keyboard, seldom used except by the billing department (‘To one gross wingnuts @ 1/3 a dozen … 15/-’).

It was from its function of separating shillings (solidi) from pence (denarii) that the sign acquired its name of solidus. In the Middle Ages the same sign had been used in manuscripts in much the same way that we use a comma, and in this function it was called a virgula in Latin, because it looked like a rod or stick. The English version virgule is dated only to the 19th century by the Oxford English Dictionary. I suppose it retains that kind of use when it separates verses of poetry when they are run on in print instead of being presented in lines.