Typing Fractions in Emails and Text Files

by Richard Cheshire (aka The Cheshire Catalyst

In discussing "writing" by typing on computers, I would like to bring up the problem of typing fractions on a keyboard.  At the end of Tom Lehrer's song New Math, he promised that after talking about subtraction in Base 8, "next week, fractions", but he never followed up.

Most style manuals would have a typist spell the fraction: "one and a half" as:

1 1/2 (one space one slash two)

I'm a ham radio operator.  Ham radio is a hobby that grew out of telegraphy over radio, and the Morse code characters themselves are based on dots, dashes, and the spaces between these two types of "audio components" that make up each character.  The (International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Telegraph Regulations on the transmission of telegrams (still in effect today) state that fractions shall be transmitted with the "dash" character between the whole number and the numerator, with the numerator and denominator separated by a "slant bar" character, usually just called "slash."

Our "one and a half" would be typed as: "one dash one slash two" (1-1/2).  By using the dash character instead of a space character, there is no confusion when transmitting or receiving fractions using the Morse code, and later using the Baudot code via Telex.  Today we use use Unicode characters, a descendant of ASCII (the American Standard Code for Information Interchange).

As an aside, "back-slash" is only used in describing Microsoft file names on a Windows based computer, while "forward slash" is redundant, since only the word "slash" is necessary for expressing web addresses and file name locations on the Internet.

I consider e-mails to be the direct linear descendant of telegrams, and so I proudly use the telegraph required format for typing fractions in my e-mails and other typed correspondence.  Another rule of the telegraph regulations, is that a signature in a telegram "shall be indented 5 or more spaces."

Then again, I admit that I consider myself a licensed nerd, since I hold ham radio license N4SCY.