The slash (/) separates dates, quoted lines of poetry, alternatives such as and/or, and the parts of a web address. In formal writing it is best used sparingly: most slashes can be replaced by a word such as or, and, or per.
This article is about the punctuation mark, not the guitarist of Guns N' Roses: the short, slanted line that you come across every now and again and that is part of every web address.
The slash in everyday writing
Writing purists are no fans of the slash. Even so, it appears in many places and is part of almost everything you read and write. Here are the most common uses.
Dates
The best-known use of the slash is to separate the month, the day, and the year in a date. Depending on where you live, the standard short format is either mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy. So April 12, 2016 is written as one of these:
- 04/12/2016 (month first, as in the United States)
- 12/04/2016 (day first, as in the United Kingdom and much of the world)
Because the same date can be read two ways, write the month as a word when your readers may come from different countries. In some countries, a period replaces the slash: 12.04.2016 for April 12. The international standard, ISO 8601, puts the year first and uses hyphens: 2016-04-12.
Poetry
The slash is not part of a poem itself. But when you quote lines of poetry in running text, a slash shows where each line ends, with a space on each side. These are the first two lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Alternatives
The slash often joins alternatives, and it is popular in gender-neutral writing. Take these examples:
- Just tell him/her what I said.
- The writer/director presented her new film.
- Bring a pen and/or a pencil.
In each case you can drop the slash or replace it with a word. For gender-neutral writing, the pronoun they (or them) can replace he/she or him/her: Just tell them what I said. Some documents, often legal ones, instead state at the start that male pronouns include everyone.
In the second example, a hyphen (writer-director) or the word and can replace the slash. Many style guides also advise against and/or in formal text: a pen, a pencil, or both says the same thing more clearly.
Fractions and rates
A slash also writes a fraction (1/2, 3/4) and stands for "per" in units and prices: 60 km/h, $15/hour. In running text, the word is often clearer: 15 dollars an hour.
Computers and web addresses
On computers, the slash is very much alive. It separates the folders in a file path on Linux and macOS, and the parts of a web address:
- images/vacation/sundown.jpg
- https://www.example.com/help/contact
Do not confuse the slash with the backslash (\), which leans the other way and has other jobs, for example in file paths on Windows.
Spaces around the slash
Normally, there is no space before or after a slash: and/or, he/she, km/h. Use a space on each side when you separate lines of poetry, and, in many style guides, when one of the items holds a space itself: World War I / World War II.
Should you use the slash?
Generally speaking, the slash belongs in first drafts and notes rather than in polished writing. In most cases, you can replace it with a proper expression:
| Slash | Write instead |
|---|---|
| w/o | without |
| b/c | because |
| any man/woman | any man or woman |
| he/she | they |
| $15/hour | 15 dollars an hour |
For the other marks that link words, see the guide to the hyphen and the overview of punctuation rules.