Chacham's Journal: Puzzle: What do you call.....

What do you call:

• Your outer skin? Answer
• Under you outer skin? Answer
• Thing at the back of your throat? Answer
• That symbol on the right of the zero on a phone pad (digital) that people call "hash" or "number sign"? Answer
• The line in between the numerator and a denominator of a fraction?Answer

I don't know the last one. And I'm having a hard time finding out, unless it's simply called "bar".

The last answer

[bubblegoose]

I found the answer on a Google newsgroup search here [google.com]

According to the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables 16th edition
p657, it is a "horizontal rule" or a "sign of division".

Another posting in that thread says:

As a boy I was taught to call it a "vinculum". The Collins Dictionary
of Mathematics may explain why: it's a "horizontal line placed above
a group of terms in an expression as an alternative to brackets..."

This thread here [google.com] puts vinculum in doubt.

Re:The last answer

[Chacham]

Interesting. And "virgule" is a good word too. :-)

I think I'll go with "horizontal rule". Now to see what my sister says it is.