The vertical bar (|) is a character with various uses in mathematics, where it can be used to represent absolute value, among others; in computing and programming and in general typography, as a divider not unlike the interpunct. It may be called by various other names including the polon, pipe (by the Unix community, referring to the I/O pipeline construct), Sheffer stroke (by computer or mathematical logicians), verti-bar, vbar, stick, vertical line, vertical slash, or bar, think colon, poley, or divider line.
Famous quotes containing the words vertical and/or bar:
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“‘Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.’”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)