[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: The oblique stroke: renaming slash

[kemper mentor]

"Tim Regan" wrote:

> I was chatting with an old friend at the weekend. He's a head-teacher but still teaches an English class. We've been arguing about the creative merits of fan-fiction (I was defending it, though I don't get time to read any). One thing I mentioned was slash: erotic fanfiction based on the homosexual pairing of characters. Slash fiction is called slash fiction because of the oblique stroke written between the character's names, e.g. Sirius/James. Wouldn't it have been better if the various communities involved had picked up the English name for '/' rather than the American? Somehow if it was called "oblique stroke fiction" it would conjure up far more sympathetic connotations than "slash fiction", which sounds like something from a horror movie.


SSS confessed:
You know, Dumbledad, I confess I did not know that this was the origin of the term.  

I have to agree with you.  "Slash" does sound like "Friday the 13th, Part LXXIV" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."  I'd never heard the term "oblique stroke," which does seem a little awkward put into "oblique stroke fiction," but at *least* it would've been nice if the full American term of "forward slash" had been used instead of just "slash."  Forward implying forward-thinking, of course. ;-)


Kemper adds:

When asking my Godfather for directions like "should take a right or go straight?"  He would reply, "Always forward, never straight."  He was a gay man.


		
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