I came across an interesting article on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website the other day. (I use the site regularly, along with the Oxford Dictionary Online.)

It was a post by one of the site’s editors, and she discusses a new word currently in use in a new way, a change of which she approves.

The new word is “slash,” as in, I’m going to visit slash stay with my best friend in Colorado. While this is typically written as visit/stay with, Emily Brewster (the editor) explains that writing out the word “slash” now gives new meaning to the punctuation mark. 

It’s acting like a conjunction, or a follow-up word: I’m going to Colorado to visit my best friend, and moreover, I’m going to stay with her.

Brewster points out other instances where punctuation has become part of spoken language, but I won’t paraphrase here but will let you read about that on her blog. Period.

As an editor, I have to stay current with the changes in the English language, both here and in the UK, so it’s interesting to run across an article such as Brewster’s and wonder when publishers will take note of the use of slash and admit it to the publishing lexicon.

I hope slash fear it will take a while, since I need to get used to slash accept the idea of its new use.