Forward Slash?

Or even more nonsensically, forwardslash.

Where in the world has this new trend come from? I refer to the tendency of calling a “slash” a “forward slash.”

The keyboard has always had a slash character. On the “qwerty” keyboard, it’s there in the lower-right corner under the question mark. It’s a slash. It always has been, at least since Civil War days.

Now people in the media are referring to it as a “forward slash,” and the trend is growing. Why would this be? Where did all this unnecessary folderol come from? I’m thinking it has to do with the various marketing departments of many large firms and their constant efforts at idiot-proofing the world.

Here’s what I picture: Some of these folks are sitting around an office considering making some product or advertisement available over the Web. One of them is vaguely aware of something called a “backslash.” Yearning to seem somewhat more knowledgeable than the rest of them, he or she says, “We’d better be clear about our Web address or people will get it all screwed up and not be able to get there.” The others in the room don’t know any better, and despite the fact that no one has ever seen a backslash in a Web address, they all agree that the language needs to get tortured to keep their jobs intact. The change is made. Other industry types hear their ads and do the same thing in fawn-like obedience. We now have an all-out trend on our hands.

This is how language changes, and often not for the better. People hear things, mishear things, make what they think are reasonable adaptations, and the language loses yet a little more meaning as it becomes a little bit less elegant.

Is there anyone who thinks these paranoid marketing types might have a point? Please do this for me: Go to ten randomly selected people and ask them to find the backslash key. If they can find it in less than a second, ask what it’s used for. Ask if they have ever seen it in a Web address. Prediction: The majority of the people you ask will not know where it is, they won’t know what it’s used for, but they would still never dream of typing it into a browser’s location bar.

Here is a trend that’s not doing anyone a bit of good. It should have died on the vine, but instead it is flourishing. Get used to it folks! The blind are leading the blind and, unfortunately, they are leading just about everybody else, too!

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