this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Hi, English isn't my mother tongue so I was asking myself that question since I first encounted a w/... Back then I was like: "What tf does 'w slash' stand for?" And when I found out I was like "How, why, and is it any intuitive?" But I never dared to ask that until now

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[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 120 points 1 year ago (82 children)

All in all, the / is just one style of abbreviation used in English. It's not only used for "with", but also a few other words (w/o = without, N/A = not applicable).

In German we abbreviate using a dot (e.g. "m." = "mit" = "with). That's not more or less intuitive, it's just what you are used to.

What's kinda special with English is that there are multiple abbreviation styles. Off the top of my head I can think of six styles:

  • Abbreviate random parts of words using a slash: "N/A", "w/", "w/o"
  • Abbreviate keeping only the first letter of a word using a dot: "e.g."
  • Abbreviate keeping the first and some random later consonants (and sometimes consonants that aren't in the word at all) without using punctuation: Dr, Mr, Ms, Mrs
  • Abbreviate using acronyms and no punctuation: BBC
  • Abbreviate using acronyms and dots: B.C.
  • Abbreviate by substituting parts of the word with a single letter: Xmas (Christmas), Xing (Crossing)
[–] sarchar@programming.dev 31 points 1 year ago (18 children)

In programmer lingo we'll sometimes shorten words with the number of letters in between:

i18n (internationalization) and L10n (localization). I just learned of g11n (globalization), too.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

True, forgot about that one. I really hat this style of abbreviation^^

[–] user134450@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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