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Diagonal stroke

Notation
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A slash (/) used to mark line breaks in quoted poetry or indicate alternatives.

Detailed Definition
The diagonal stroke, or virgule, is standard in prose quotations of poetry to show lineation; it preserves metrical structure when verse is embedded in prose and may also denote ambiguity or choice between words in modernist or fragmented poetic styles.
Example
Example in poetry:
Diagonal strokes appear in slashed zeroes (Ø) in Scandinavian poetry; In mathematical poetry, / or \ denote division or paths; Some poets use diagonal strokes as visual separators: “love\hate”; In concrete poetry, diagonal strokes create dynamic angles; In typographic experiments, diagonal strokes cross out words: “never/always”; In code poetry, / indicates directory paths metaphorically.
Additional Notes
Diagonal stroke: A diagonal stroke (/) often functions as a virgule or solidus in poetry to indicate line breaks in quoted verse or to separate alternatives; in metrical notation, it may mark foot divisions—ensure consistency in usage to avoid ambiguity between division, substitution, or caesura.
Also Known As
slash solidus (context-dependent) virgule (context-dependent)
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