Fighting Backslash (An Illustrated PSA)

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the typographic character above is not a backslash.

 

Now, it's not inconceivable to hear a web address spoken aloud as something like "WWW dot mycoolsite dot com backslash mypage," and you might have even used "backslash" in that context yourself, but...well, how can I say this?

It's pretty certain you're using it wrong.

That slanty character that's used to separate sections of a URL is never a backslash. You can call it a forward slash if you need to disambiguate, but fortunately, it's got another name that's even simpler to remember and faster to say: It's a slash.

Though a slash can look confusingly like a backslash, it's pretty easy to tell them apart once you notice which direction they're leaning—a slash leans to the right, a backslash leans to the left.

If telling left from right isn't your talent (raise your left hand if you're still using your thumb and index finger to make the "L for left!"), there's yet one more way you can remind yourself just which type of slash you're seeing—just consider where it's heading!

If you're reading a line of text, at any character where you stop (a "/" for example), you can be certain that the words to the left of that character are words you already read,* and the words to the right of it are the ones you have yet to read. Said another way, the words you already read are the past, and the words yet to be read are the future. And look which way the forward slash leans!**

If the superhuman effort of trying to memorize which is a backslash and which is not proves too much for you, never fear! There is a simple rule of thumb you can follow in 99% of situations: Just don't say "backslash."

I can't think of a single place where backslashes are used, except in Microsoft Windows file paths, and how often do you narrate one of those aloud?

So the next time you're telling someone about a web page on your cool site, don't make your mouth do any more work than necessary! The word you're looking for is probably "slash"—no "back" required.

Footnotes

*That is, if you're reading a left-to-right language, which I assume you are, since I wrote this post in English...but best to head off any smart alecks at the pass!

**That is, if you're imagining the slash to be an anthropomorphized figure which stands on its bottom end and has its face in the same approximate position as that of a human, which I assume you are because that's how it looks in all the illustrations....Smart alecks, I'm watching you!