[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Clem Cole]

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On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen at sdaoden.eu> wrote:

> ...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
> created what became POSIX preferred slash instead
>
​I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part of
the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe I had
ever heard of the term "​solidus." Such a term maybe had been used in my
first form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had long ago
forgotten any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to remember it as a
computer professional.

In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to the
asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the sound
made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the console
TTY.  But slash was what we called the character that is now next to the
shift key on modern keyboards.   I do not remember ever using, much less
needed to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap
that the folks in Redmond forced on the industry.   Although interestingly
enough, the vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol was used and discussed
freely in those days.   I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the
unshifted character, not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics
of the PC.

Clem

** For those that do not know (my apologies to those that do) the 1985
/usr/group standards committee was the forerunner to IEEE P1003.  Which we
published as the first "official UNIX API standard agreed by the community"
(I still have a hardcopy).  But neither /usr/group nor USENIX had the
political authority to bring an official standard to FIPS, ANSI, ECMA, ISO
or like, while IEEE did.  So a few months before the last meeting, Jim
Issak petitioned IEEE for standards status, and the last meeting of the
/usr/group UNIX standards meeting was very short -- about 10 minutes.   We
voted to disband and then everyone in the room officially reformed a few
minutes later all signing in as IEEE P1003, later to be called POSIX.  For
further historical note, I was a "founding member" of both groups and the
editor of a number of early drafts (numbers 5-11 IIRC), as well as the
primary author of the Tape Format and Terminal I/O sections of P1003.1.
With Keith Bostic, I would later be part of the P1003.2 and pen the
original PAX compromise.  After that whole mess I was so disgusted with the
politics of the effort, I stopping going to the POSIX mtgs.

PPS While I did not work for them at the time, you can blame DEC for the
mess with the case/character sets in the POSIX & FIPS standards.   A number
of the compromises in the standard documents were forced by VMS, 7-bit
(case insensitivity) being the prime one.   While we did get in the
rational section of document that it was suggested/advised that systems
implementations and applications code be case insensitive and 8 bit clean
so that other character sets could be supported.  However the DEC folks
were firmly against anything more than 7-bit ASCII and supporting anything
in that character set. My memory is that the IBM folks were silent at the
time and just let the DEC guys carry the torch for 1960's 7-bit US English.
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Clem Cole]

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On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 10:52 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> We voted to disband and then everyone in the room officially reformed a
> few minutes later all signing in as IEEE P1003, later to be called POSIX.


​I should have added, the /usr/group UNIX standard document became "draft
0" of the IEEE P1003.1 after being put into "official" IEEE format, with
some magic macro work by Jim, John Quarterman, and myself.  Ah the wonders
of troff.​   And it was originally formatted on a Masscomp MC-500 which I
would bring to the IEEE meetings, which was considered a wonderment at that
time.   We could actually edit the document as we discussed it!!!   There
was no such thing as a laptop and the even the "Compaq Luggable" PC was
still a few years out.
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Nemo]

On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
> I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
> refer to, the character "back slash"

printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
 refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");

And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.

N.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
 |> I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
 |> refer to, the character "back slash"
 |
 |printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
 | refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");
 |
 |And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.

Fish.

--steffen

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Clem Cole]

Good point....  shows how good my memory is... sigh...

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
> > I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
> > refer to, the character "back slash"
>
> printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
>  refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");
>
> And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.
>
> N.
>
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

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Hello.

Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
 |On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso <[1]steffen at sdaoden.\
 |eu[/1]> wrote:
 |
 |...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
 |created what became POSIX preferred slash instead
 |
 |I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part \
 |of the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe \
 |I had ever 
 |heard of the term "solidus." Such a term maybe had been used in my fi\
 |rst form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had long a\
 |go forgotten 
 |any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to remember it as a com\
 |puter professional.

Of course.  It doesn't even sound friendlier with its origins in
the Roman culture, as a name for money.  I wasn't consciously
aware of this once i've responded.

 |In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to t\
 |he asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the \
 |sound made by 
 |them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the console T\
 |TY.  But slash was what we called the character that is now next to t\

That is something to remind.  The standard has two occurrences of
bang, in the shell syntax and for the Mail variable of the same name.
And yes, young, brilliant and highly educated men and women
explore new worlds.  So splat makes a lot of sense.

If seen from this angle it is even less enjoyable that Linguists
put more prominence on the correlation of slash and solidus.

 |he shift key 
 |on modern keyboards.   I do not remember ever using, much less needed\
 | to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap t\
 |hat the folks 
 |in Redmond forced on the industry.   Although interestingly enough, t\

You mean the word?  We don't have a word for this character in
German, as far as i know.  (But you surely used it for \n \t etc.)

 |he vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol was used and discussed freely i\
 |n those days. 
 |  I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the unshifted charact\
 |er, not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics of the PC.

This sentence prevented work and caused an interesting journey via
Wikipedia.  I am looking at a DEC VT52, from before Microsoft.
(I really like my current Apple (US) keyboard, after say twenty
years of sorrow in which i couldn't forget the robust metal
i think IBM keyboards that the administrators of the insurance my
father worked at used in their two-skyscraper-floors bunker.)

--steffen

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the unshifted character, 
> not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics of the PC.

Beta documents suggest M$ wanted to switch the...switch character to dash 
(-) for 2.0 and use / for the path separator, but *IBM* insisted on 
keeping / and using \ for path separator...and what IBM wanted, IBM got.

That said I think one or two OEMs did in fact set the SWITCHAR to - and 
use / for a path separator anyway.

-uso.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Random832]

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On Fri, Jul 8, 2016, at 10:52, Clem Cole wrote:
> ​I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part
> of the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe I
> had ever heard of the term "​solidus." Such a term maybe had been used
> in my first form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had
> long ago forgotten any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to
> remember it as a computer professional.
>
> In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to
> the asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the
> sound made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from
> the console TTY.  But slash was what we called the character that is
> now next to the shift key on modern keyboards.   I do not remember
> ever using, much less needed to refer to, the character "back slash"
> until the unfortunate crap that the folks in Redmond forced on the
> industry.

You never had to use it for escaping in C/Regex/Troff/etc?

>  Although interestingly enough, the vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol
>  was used and discussed freely in those days.   I find it interesting
>  that Redmond-ism became the unshifted character, not the vertical bar
>  by the shear force of economics of the PC.

ASCII keyboards had \ unshifted long before the PC.  The ASR-33 didn't
have it (it didn't have pipe at all - backslash was on shift-L), but
every DEC keyboard I can find did, as did the ADM-3a, and incidentally
the Symbolics Lisp Machine's keyboard.

I had suspected the reason that [\] ended up as the unshifted characters
is because {|} were not available on uppercase-only keyboards, but I
can't find any uppercase terminals that had separate keys for them (the
ASR-33 had them on shift- KLM). I expect that's also why ^, on shift-N,
was used for pipes rather than the vertical bar in the earliest versions
of Unix that had them.

What terminals did you use, back in those days?

(Incidentally, I can find *literally no* pictures of a Teletype 37,
and no sufficiently high-quality closeups of a 38 to determine its
keyboard layout)

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Clem Cole]

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On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:

> What terminals did you use, back in those days?


​
Hard copy (that I remember, but we have proven how poor memory can be):​

   - ​ASR/KSR 33s originally, we had one 37 but it was not on a system I
   used
   - IBM console's printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten (but with an APL
   ball)
   - Later Xerox DaisyWheel printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten
   - Later DEC Decwritter I and II

Glass TTY (not complete but for a quick memory dump)

   - Lear Siegler ADM3 (lots of them - many people made them as kits) and
   why we have hjkl as the movement keys in vi - the arrows were embossed on
   those key tops
   - PE "Fox" (CMU has a large lot deal and these became the standard there
   in the late 70s)
   - Triple Drip "Graphic Wonders" (man I miss these with a dedicated PDP11
   and an amazing keyboard --- best game platform I ever knew)
   - Tektronix 401x series (just about all models of them) but 4014 was
   used the most
   - DEC VT52
   - Eventually, VT-100, PT-100 and a number of other VT-100 knock offs
   - Eventually Tek 4025s (until the RT, one of the best keyboards - used
   in Magnolia BTW)
   - Heathkit H19 (still have mine that I built)
   - Eventually Wyse 100's, 99GTs and Wyse 60s -- later being the best Wyse
   (I still have one)
   - Ann Arbor Ambassador (my all time favorite - wish I still had one)
   - Too many different graphics terminals to remember
   - Numerous other "dumb terminals" who's brand names I have long
   forgotten.
   - although for some reason I remember the Kimtron KT-7 being a popular
   one - memory is they were dirt cheap at the time
   - Eventually later models of DEC terminals, but the keyboard always
   sucked and had those strange DEC private connectors on them, so I tried to
   avoid them.

Clem
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Ron Natalie]

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I started on ADM-1 (upper case only but they did have cursor addressing) and ASR-33 teletypes.   I remember using all the backslash escapes to write my first C program while Mike Muuss looked on in the UGL at Hopkins.     Later we got HP terminals with upper and lower case.

 

Hopkins had a KSR37 in the EE department with a greek type box on it even.   It was stored in a closet dubbed (obviously) “The KSR Room.”    The pennywhistle modem I had lived there.   We used to place collect calls to the Pentagon TIP (we’d tell the operator we were calling a computer and if it beeped it accepted the charges).    Later they upgraded the printing with a Diablo-ish (daisy wheel) printer.    We had such printers over in various other labs I had access to (Psych department, etc.).

 

Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave poor tilde alone) and a few ADM-3’s and for some idiotic reason the department bought a couple of SWTPC implementations of the TVTypewriterII which were just awful.  Tektronix donated a bunch of stuff to us so we ended up with both 4014-ish things and some real raster Tek graphics terminals.

 

When I went over to BRL we primarily dealt with some VT52 clones which were preferred because they  put the control key next to the A which we liked.   Eventually, we got the Teletype 5620 the commercialization of the Blit/jerq DMD terminals.     By the time I left most of us had either Suns or SGIs on our desk though.

 

At home I had an ADM-3 followed by one of the VT-52 clones and also a ASR 37 that I got surplus (It had a Rocky Flats property tag on it).    When I moved to NJ I ditched them all and just used at terminal emulator on my DOS PC-AT for the longest time.    I actually had a 9600 SLIP line and a router to the Ethernet in my house (I used one of the RU subnet numbers).  

 

 

 

From: TUHS [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Clem Cole
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 4:49 PM
To: Random832
Cc: TUHS main list
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

 

 

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:

What terminals did you use, back in those days?

 

​

Hard copy (that I remember, but we have proven how poor memory can be):​

*	​ASR/KSR 33s originally, we had one 37 but it was not on a system I used
*	IBM console's printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten (but with an APL ball)
*	Later Xerox DaisyWheel printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten
*	Later DEC Decwritter I and II

Glass TTY (not complete but for a quick memory dump)

*	Lear Siegler ADM3 (lots of them - many people made them as kits) and why we have hjkl as the movement keys in vi - the arrows were embossed on those key tops
*	PE "Fox" (CMU has a large lot deal and these became the standard there in the late 70s)
*	Triple Drip "Graphic Wonders" (man I miss these with a dedicated PDP11 and an amazing keyboard --- best game platform I ever knew)
*	Tektronix 401x series (just about all models of them) but 4014 was used the most
*	DEC VT52
*	Eventually, VT-100, PT-100 and a number of other VT-100 knock offs
*	Eventually Tek 4025s (until the RT, one of the best keyboards - used in Magnolia BTW)
*	Heathkit H19 (still have mine that I built)
*	Eventually Wyse 100's, 99GTs and Wyse 60s -- later being the best Wyse (I still have one)
*	Ann Arbor Ambassador (my all time favorite - wish I still had one)
*	Too many different graphics terminals to remember
*	Numerous other "dumb terminals" who's brand names I have long forgotten.
*	although for some reason I remember the Kimtron KT-7 being a popular one - memory is they were dirt cheap at the time
*	Eventually later models of DEC terminals, but the keyboard always sucked and had those strange DEC private connectors on them, so I tried to avoid them.

Clem

 

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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

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Ron Natalie scripsit:

> Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave
> poor tilde alone)

Not the terminal's fault.  It was just implementing ASCII-63, in which
ESC was up by DEL, in the current position of ~.  Other terminals did
ASCII-67, the current standard.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
A poetical purist named Cowan                   [that's me]
Once put the rest of us dowan.                  [on xml-dev]
"Your verse would be sweeter / If it only had metre
And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan."     [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Ron Natalie]

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That may have been the origin, but Hazeltine persisted even in later versions of the terminal which implemented later ASCII and had a printing ~ at 126.    That's why the comment and associated code is in the terminal driver.  In order to print a ~ you had to send it twice.


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@ccil.org] On Behalf Of John Cowan
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 5:17 PM
To: Ron Natalie
Cc: 'Clem Cole'; 'Random832'; 'TUHS main list'
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

Ron Natalie scripsit:

> Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave poor 
> tilde alone)

Not the terminal's fault.  It was just implementing ASCII-63, in which ESC was up by DEL, in the current position of ~.  Other terminals did ASCII-67, the current standard.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
A poetical purist named Cowan                   [that's me]
Once put the rest of us dowan.                  [on xml-dev]
"Your verse would be sweeter / If it only had metre
And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan."     [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Dave Horsfall]

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On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to the 
> asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the sound 
> made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the 
> console TTY. 

I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
An observable characteristic is not necessarily a functional requirement.
        --John Hudson

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Milo Velimirovic]

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> On Jul 9, 2016, at 12:03 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> 
> Dave Horsfall scripsit:
> 
>> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
> 
> Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.

It’s the $ that forces the quoting.

[TUHS] Slashes

[Christian Neukirchen]

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Milo Velimirovic <milov at cs.uwlax.edu> writes:

>> On Jul 9, 2016, at 12:03 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Dave Horsfall scripsit:
>> 
>>> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
>> 
>> Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.
>
> It’s the $ that forces the quoting.

Not in POSIX-compatible sh (works in tcsh even):

$ echo see$
see$

(Neither does ^ need quoting there.)

-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen at gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Norman Wilson]

Dave Horsfall:

  I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

====

I still remember--barely--when \136 was up-arrow, not carat!

I don't think pipe was ever only ^, but that ^ was a
synonym for | added to make it easier to use on older
upper-case terminals that had no |.  Those (remaining
few) who were there at the time can perhaps clarify.

I still habitually quote shell arguments containing ^,
even though I haven't used a shell that required that
since late 1984 (Rob had removed the special meaning
from /bin/sh before I arrived at Bell Labs).  On the
other hand, I still cannot be bothered to get used to
quoting arguments containing !; I just disable all
that history and editing bloatware whenever possible.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steve Nickolas]

On Sat, 9 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:

> Dave Horsfall:
>
>  I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
>
> ====
>
> I still remember--barely--when \136 was up-arrow, not carat!

Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio 
Shack's did at least.

-uso.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

Steve Nickolas scripsit:

> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think
> Radio Shack's did at least.

PETSCII definitely did (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII>).

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Here lies the Christian, judge, and poet Peter,
Who broke the laws of God and man and metre.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:

> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio Shack's did at least.

I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.  They persisted into the late 80s when I used them.  I'm not sure what appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with different software on it.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Ronald Natalie]

We had teletypes that went both ways.    Some had the arrows and some had the caret/underscore.

> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:53 PM, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> 
> On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> 
>> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio Shack's did at least.
> 
> I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.  They persisted into the late 80s when I used them.  I'm not sure what appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with different software on it.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Wesley Parish]

IIRC, Steven Kaisler's book "The Design of Operating Systems for Small Computer
Systems" used the up-arrow as the pseudocode's pointer symbol. Did Pascal do
that as well, or was that only on some of the Pascal dialects?

Wesley Parish

Quoting Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com>:

> We had teletypes that went both ways. Some had the arrows and some had
> the caret/underscore.
> 
> > On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:53 PM, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> > 
> >> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think
> Radio Shack's did at least.
> > 
> > I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had
> caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.
> They persisted into the late 80s when I used them. I'm not sure what
> appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the
> character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with
> different software on it.
> 
>  



"I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
Method for Guitar

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Joerg Schilling]

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Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> IIRC, Steven Kaisler's book "The Design of Operating Systems for Small Computer
> Systems" used the up-arrow as the pseudocode's pointer symbol. Did Pascal do
> that as well, or was that only on some of the Pascal dialects?

The original Pascal did it, but the up-arrow was not available oon EBCDIC, so we 
used @ on the Pascal that did come with CMS for the /360.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Sven Mascheck]

On Sat, Jul 09, 2016 at 09:41:08PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I still habitually quote shell arguments containing ^,
> even though I haven't used a shell that required that
> since late 1984 (Rob had removed the special meaning
> from /bin/sh before I arrived at Bell Labs).

The 8th ed shell, derived from SVR2.  It underwent some
cleanup and got history,
http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/bourne/#version8 
before rc came later.
The 8th ed changes didn't make it into SVR3, I wonder why.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Norman Wilson]

Clem Cole:

  I do not remember ever using, much less
  needed to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap
  that the folks in Redmond forced on the industry.

=====

Oh, come on.  You programmed in C.  You probably used
UNIX back when @ was the default kill character (though
I doubt you're odd enough still to use that kill character,
as I do).  You surely used troff, LaTeX, or both, and have
doubtless sworn at regular expressions more often than
most of the young Linux crowd have had chocolate bars.

I think you've just forgotten it out of PBSD (post-backlash
stress disorder, nothing to do with Berkeley).

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
UNIX\(tm old fart who swore at a regexp just yesterday

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Norman Wilson]

Steffen Nurpmeso:

  ...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
  created what became POSIX preferred slash instead -- i hope it is
  not the proud of high skills in using (maybe light) sabers that
  some people of the engineer community seem to foster.  But it
  could be the sober truth.  Or, it could be a bug caused by
  inconsideration.  And that seems very likely now.

====

It had nothing to do with engineers.  `Slash' for / has been
conventional American usage for as long as I can remember,
dating back well before POSIX or UNIX or the movie that made
a meme of light sabers.

It's unclear exactly how far back it dates.  The earliest
OED citation for `slash' as `A thin sloping line, thus /'
is dated 1961; but the cite is from Webster's 3rd.

Given the amount of violence prevalent in American metaphor,
it is hardly noteworthy.

Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

* If you don't know what this refers to, you probably don't
want to know.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

Norman Wilson scripsit:

> Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).

As between mosquitoes and black flies, I'll take the former.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Economists were put on this planet to make astrologers look good.
        --Leo McGarry

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Brantley Coile]

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“Those gnats are dynomite!” — Monty Python (or should have been)

> On Jul 8, 2016, at 9:16 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> 
> Norman Wilson scripsit:
> 
>> Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).
> 
> As between mosquitoes and black flies, I'll take the former.
> 
> -- 
> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> Economists were put on this planet to make astrologers look good.
>        --Leo McGarry

[TUHS] MS-DOS

[Norman Wilson]

I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
would give an Englishman a stroke.

If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

[TUHS] MS-DOS

[Steve Nickolas]

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>
> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>

I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)

-uso.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>
>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>
>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>
> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)

For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
French word for comma, and OED states:

   A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
   a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
   same value as the modern comma).

In modern context, it might apply equally to \\.
Clearly that has even more capacity to confuse.

Greg
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Nemo]

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On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>>
>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>
>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>
> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
> French word for comma, and OED states:
>
>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
>    same value as the modern comma).

On the other hand, the OED has the following.

slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /

solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
shilling-mark.

I would argue "solidus" is closer.

N.

>
> In modern context, it might apply equally to \\.
> Clearly that has even more capacity to confuse.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

Nemo scripsit:

> I would argue "solidus" is closer.

A solid argument, worth at least a shilling.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver
spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, "I want to be
rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to
act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

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Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
 |>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
 |>>
 |>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
 |>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
 |>>>
 |>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
 |>>
 |>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
 |>
 |> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
 |> French word for comma, and OED states:
 |>
 |>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
 |>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
 |>    same value as the modern comma).
 |
 |On the other hand, the OED has the following.
 |
 |slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
 |
 |solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
 |in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
 |shilling-mark.
 |
 |I would argue "solidus" is closer.

SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
To the contrary, the POSIX standard, says "Slash Character
(<slash>)" and then states "also known as solidus" in the
description, and ditto does so for reverse solidus.  Maybe this
will change over time to better reflect ISO 10646.

--steffen

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>>> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>>>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>>>>
>>>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>>>
>>>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>>>
>>> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
>>> French word for comma, and OED states:
>>>
>>>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
>>>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
>>>    same value as the modern comma).
>>
>> On the other hand, the OED has the following.
>>
>> slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
>>
>> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
>> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
>> shilling-mark.

This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
entry is interesting.

>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>
> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.

Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
those in the know.

Greg
--
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[scj]

>
>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>
>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>
> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
> those in the know.
>
> Greg
> --

What fun!  Having disposed of # and / and \, anybody want to find other
obscure names for the other operators?   Soon we could be as obscure as
Algol 68!

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 22:40:47 -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>
>>
>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>>
>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>>
>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
>> those in the know.
>
> What fun!  Having disposed of # and / and \, anybody want to find
> other obscure names for the other operators?  Soon we could be as
> obscure as Algol 68!

That takes real talent.

You've made me locate my Report (not Revised Report).  It's
surprisingly dog-eared.  I'll go through it and see what I can find,
but for the moment section 2.2 seems appropriate.

Greg
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

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Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |>> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |>>> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
 |>>>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
 |>>>>
 |>>>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
 |>>>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.

 |>> On the other hand, the OED has the following.
 |>>
 |>> slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
 |>>
 |>> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
 |>> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
 |>> shilling-mark.

 |>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
 |>
 |> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
 |> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
 |
 |Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)

Copied and pasted from UnicodeData.txt.

 |solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
 |those in the know.

Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into
Slash («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich = (harter, kurzer)
Schlag, Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
esclachier = (zer)teilen») and that a furtherly described
Schrägstrich will wind up in «Backslash» («Herkunft: englisch
backslash, aus: back = zurück und slash = Hieb, Schnitt»)

It gives me cause for concern that we replace a civil word like
«Schrägstrich» ("oblique bar") with something aggressive and
dismembering that slash seems to represent.  That may be a reason
for Linguists to promote solidus and ban the other words into the
commentary, one might think.

...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
created what became POSIX preferred slash instead -- i hope it is
not the proud of high skills in using (maybe light) sabers that
some people of the engineer community seem to foster.  But it
could be the sober truth.  Or, it could be a bug caused by
inconsideration.  And that seems very likely now.

--steffen

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Friday,  8 July 2016 at 13:09:12 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
>>> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>>
>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>>
>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not
>> for those in the know.
>
> Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into Slash
> («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich???= (harter, kurzer) Schlag,
> Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
> esclachier???= (zer)teilen»

You don't quote your source, but the blue Duden (paraphrased for
non-German speakers) makes it clear that "Strich" comes from an Ablaut
form of "streichen", itself derived from the root "Strahl", originally
meaning "arrow".  So ultimately, it seems, you have the choice of
being struck or shot.

Greg
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[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

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Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |On Friday,  8 July 2016 at 13:09:12 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |>>> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
 |>>>
 |>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
 |>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
 |>>
 |>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
 |>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not
 |>> for those in the know.
 |>
 |> Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into Slash
 |> («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich???= (harter, kurzer) Schlag,
 |> Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
 |> esclachier???= (zer)teilen»
 |
 |You don't quote your source, but the blue Duden (paraphrased for
 |non-German speakers) makes it clear that "Strich" comes from an Ablaut
 |form of "streichen", itself derived from the root "Strahl", originally
 |meaning "arrow".  So ultimately, it seems, you have the choice of
 |being struck or shot.

Haha, very nice.  I wouldn't sign the "originally meaning" --
without knowing it seems more likely that this visualization of an
"arrow"-in-the-flight was itself based on the "beam"s of sunlight
(that fall through holes in a cloudy sky).  Nature-induced
visualizations are pretty common me thinks; e.g., Fritz Walter
describes a football goal of the young Uwe Seeler during world
championship 1958 with "Ein Strich.  Ein Blitz." ("A line/stroke.
A Lightning.").

I would really think that "Strich" (line, dash, stroke) of
"streichen" (hm, stroke) is derived from such.  We say things like
"Die Segel streichen" (Taking in the sails), "Der Wind streicht
durch die Bäume" (The wind sweeps through the trees) and such
things.  "Streichen" is documented as an Onomatopoeia, and,
funnily, the english Wikipedia article for this mentions "bang".

Slash is not that bad, we all come from a very dark and
substantial base, and i think at least subconsciously we take that
with us, and it is a problem even before it becomes conscious.
(Interestingly just today i heard a review of a book of Sacha
Batthyany, "Und was hat das mit mir zu tun?" (What has that got to
do with me?), but not (yet) english i think.)
And, not hundred years ago one could buy liquid human fat
("Axungia hominis") in pharmacies, and usage of dismembered parts
was pretty common, and by 1984 face creams still contained fat
extracted from placenta remains.   Not 150 years ago a preacher
wrote "the thumb of a thieve laid aside from or under the goods
provides fortune for the merchant".  In Cannes this year i heard
times are about cannibalism.  So slash is just as hip as it always
had been.  I will now go and slice some pieces of Austrian cheese.

--steffen

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[John Cowan]

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Steffen Nurpmeso scripsit:

> "Die Segel streichen" (Taking in the sails), 

"Striking the sails" in technical English.  All the nations around the
North and Baltic Seas exchanged their vocabularies like diseases, and if
we didn't have records of their earlier histories, we would know they
were related but we'd never figure out exactly how.  For example, it
can be shown that French bateau, German Boot, common Scandinavian båt,
Irish bád, Scottish Gaelic bàta, Scots boat, and the equivalents in
the various Frisian languages are none of them original native words:
they all were borrowed from English boat.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
        --Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Tony Finch]

Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> >>
> >> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
> >> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
> >> shilling-mark.
>
> This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
> entry is interesting.

Not quite.

"Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.

The name solidus for / comes from the Roman coin solidus, as in the Lsd
notation where / separates the solidi from the denarii.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shilling
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=solidus

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
North Utsire: Variable, mainly southwesterly, 3 or 4. Slight or moderate.
Showers, fog patches. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor.

[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

[Nemo]

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On 11 July 2016 at 07:20, Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> wrote (in part):
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote (in part):
>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
>>
>> This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
>> entry is interesting.
>
> Not quite.
>
> "Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.
>
> The name solidus for / comes from the Roman coin solidus, as in the Lsd
> notation where / separates the solidi from the denarii.
>
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shilling
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=solidus
>
> Tony.

Here is the full OED entry for solidus and the start of that for
shilling.  (Apologies to those whose displays do not show all the
glyphs used.)

solidus
Pl. solidi (ˈsɒlɪdaɪ); also 5–7 solidos.
[L., a substantival use of solidus (sc. nummus) solid a. The form
solidos is the L. acc. pl.]

1. a.1.a A gold coin of the Roman empire, originally worth about 25
denarii. †b.1.b A shilling.

   1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) II. 313 Gentil men hade rynges, and
oþere hadde solidy þat were hole and sownde.    1432–50 tr. Higden
(Rolls) VII. 301 Kynge William toke this yere of every hyde of grownde
in Ynglone vj. solidos of silver.    1487 in Paston Lett. III. App.
463, I bequeith to the reparacion of the stepull of the said churche
of Saint Albane xx. solidos.    1609 Bible (Douay) 1 Chron. xxix. 7
And they gaue‥of gold, fiue thousand talentes, and ten thousand
solidos.    1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Solidus, an entire or whole
piece of Gold-Coin, near the Value of our old Noble or Spur-Royal; but
it is now taken for a Shilling.    1860 C. R. Smith in Archæol. Cant.
III. 38 The solidi of the Eastern Empire were commonly imitated in
France under the Merovingian princes.    1885 Athenæum 24 Oct. 541/2
Mr. Webster exhibited‥a gold solidus of Constantius.

2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6, in
writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
shilling-mark. Also attrib. Cf. oblique n. 5.

   1891 in Cent. Dict.    1898 G. Chrystal Introd. Algebra i. (1902) 3
The symbols / (solidus notation) and : (ratio notation) are equivalent
to ÷.    1905 F. H. Collins Author & Printer s.v.    1909 Athenæum 27
Mar. 379/1 The last‥have been quick to adopt the use of the solidus or
slanting line instead of the horizontal bar in writing fractions.
1923 N. Shaw Forecasting Weather i. 35 A solidus (/) such as occurs in
the combination ‘bc/r’ separates weather at the time of observation
from the preceding weather, bc/r thus indicating ‘fine or fair after
rain or drizzle’.    1947 [see non-linear a. b].    1971 Archivum
Linguisticum II. 4 Johnson/Jenkinson's ‘oblique dash’‥, which is
otherwise called a ‘solidus’ or ‘virgule’.


shilling
(ˈʃɪlɪŋ)

Forms: 1 scilling, scylling, (-ingc), 3 ssillinge, 3–6 schillinge, 4
ssyllyng, 4–5 schillyng(e, schelyng(e, shulleng(e, schullyng(e, 4–6
schiling, shill-, shyllyng(e, -inge, silling, 4–7 schilling, 5
schyllynge, shylynge, schilenge, silyn, 5–6 sheling, -yng(e,
shellyng(e, 6 scheling(e, schillengge, shealinge, shyllyn, syllyng, 4–
shilling.

[Common Teut.: OE. scilling masc. = OFris. skilling, skilleng,
schilling, MDu. schellingh (Du. schelling), OS. scilling (MLG.
schillink, schildink, mod.LG. schillink, schilling), OHG. scilling,
skillink, schilling (MHG., G. schilling), ON. skilling-r (Icel. also
skildingr, SW., Da. skilling), Goth. skilliggs:—OTeut. *skilliŋgo-z.
Adopted in OSlav. as skŭlęzĭ, in Sp., Pr., Fr. as escalin (13th c. F.
eskallin, mod.F. also schelling), It. scellino.
   The Teut. word is referred by some etymologists to the root *skell-
to resound, ring (see shill a. and v.1). Others assign it to the root
*skel- to divide (whence skill v., shale n., shell n., etc.); some
have conjectured that the word originally denoted one of the segments
of fixed weight into which an armlet of gold or silver was divided, so
that they might be detached for use as money. In the bilingual
documents of the 6th century, Goth. skilliggs corresponds to the L.
solidus; in mediæval Germany the Teut. and the Latin word were
commonly used to render each other, but in England the correspondence
appears to have been only occasionally recognized until Norman times.
The value of the ‘shilling’ in continental Teut. countries has varied
greatly; its relation to the penny and the pound has also varied,
though a widely accepted scale was 1 pound or libra = 20 shillings or
solidi = 240 pennies or denarii. See schelling, schilling1,
skilling2.]

1. a.1.a A former English money of account, from the Norman Conquest
of the value of 12d. or 1/20 of a pound sterling. Abbreviated s. (= L.
solidus: see solidus1), formerly also sh., shil.; otherwise denoted by
the sign /- after the numeral. No longer in official use after the
introduction of decimal coinage in 1971, but still occas. used to
denote five new pence.
   Before the Norman Conquest the value of the shilling varied in
different times and places. It was 5 pence in Wessex and 4 pence in
Mercia; the shilling of 12 pence mentioned in two passages c 1000 may
refer to the continental solidus.

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[Joerg Schilling]

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Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> wrote:

> "Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.

The name Schilling comes from the knight Heinrich III. Schilling von Lahnstein (1166 - 
1221).


He had a shining armour...

Jörg

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