On Slash as a

Professor Anne Curzan, in her blog piece entitled “Slash: Not Just a Punctuation Mark Anymore,”  hails the use of “slash” in a sentence as an “innovative conjunction” or “conjunctive adverb.” She sites examples such as “Does anyone care if my cousin comes and visits slash stays with us Friday night?” Or “I went to class slash caught up on Game of Thrones…” [emphasis mine].

As a poet I play with words and usage all the time. However, I see “slash,” IMHO, as a form of grammatical laziness. Of course, YMMV. One can make the same case for Internet acronyms as for slash — with identical, in my opinion, results. Leave the slashing to the slashers. And/or poets.