Solidus (punctuation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Punctuation |
|---|
|
apostrophe ( ', ’ ) |
| Interword separation |
|
spaces ( ) ( ) ( ) |
| General typography |
|
ampersand ( & ) |
| Uncommon typography |
|
asterism ( ⁂ ) |
The solidus character U+2044, ⁄, also known as a shilling mark, is a punctuation mark. The character found on standard keyboards is the virgule (commonly called forward slash).
The solidus and virgule are distinct typographic symbols with decidedly different uses. The slope of the solidus is significantly less steep than the slope of the virgule.
Most people lump the two characters together and when there is no alternative it is acceptable to use the virgule in place of the solidus. Note that the ISO and Unicode both designate the solidus character as the “FRACTION SLASH”, while designating the slash character “SOLIDUS”; this contradicts long established English typesetting terminology.[citation needed]
[edit] Usage
The solidus is used in the display of ratios and fractions as in constructing a fraction using superscript and subscript as in “123⁄456”. It should be used instead of a virgule, and is preferred whenever possible. It is found in many legacy Apple Macintosh character sets. Systems capable of fine typography should display the result as a true fraction with smaller numbers.
(Unicode also distinguishes the Division Slash U+2215 ( ∕ ) which may be more oblique than the normal solidus character.)
The virgule is used for essentially any other textual purpose, except historically, as follows.
[edit] History
Before decimalisation (15 February 1971) in the United Kingdom, and also before their respective decimalisation dates in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other former British colonies, currency amounts in pounds, shillings, and pence were abbreviated with the characters '£', 's.' or '⁄', and 'd.', e.g. £3, 4s., 2d. The pound sign '£' refers to the Latin libra, while the 's.' and 'd.' refer to the Roman currency units solidus and denarius respectively.
When used to express sums of shillings and pence, '⁄' was often used. This is a direct decendent of the long s ('ſ' or '∫'). It is the same as the 's' of today. In this usage it wasn't followed by a full stop and space. Hence 10/6 instead of 10s. 6d., requiring no 's. ' (nor 'd. ' for pence) and so was quicker to write.
It is this usage that brought about the name 'solidus' into the English language to refer to this character, ' / ', being derived from the long s ' ∫ ' for solidus when referring to shilling(s).
