Question

I have a colleague who keeps confusing slashes “slash” and “backslash” (As in: “Should I escape such-and-such with a slash?” My answer: “No.”)

I’m trying to teach him the difference but so far just telling him the name of the symbol doesn’t seem to stick. That’s why I’m trying find a good mnemonic to help him remember, but I can’t think of one.

I have seen the following:

/ is like a guy leaning forward
\ is like a guy leaning BACKward

But that requires you to remember that the guy is facing right, which just shifts the burden of remembering one arbitrary datum to remembering another arbitrary datum. (Case in point: when I told him that mnemonic, his response was “Oh yes, I see. But that only works if I remember that the guy is walking to the left.” D’oh!)

So, is there a more easily remembered mnemonic for slash-vs-backslash? Perhaps one that relates to real-world experience?

Answer 1

On my keyboard, the BACKslash key is right below the BACKspace key.

And slaSH is right next to SHift.