There's more than one kind of slash key on a computer! 

Just because you open up your "My Computer" icon, double-click on your "C" drive, and see that the path has backslashe does NOT mean that everything that resembles a slanted line is a backslash!  If you are ever on the phone with me and utter the word "backslash" when referring to a URL in your browser, I will hunt you down and BACKSLASH YOU.  Well, unless you're family, then you've got a little bit of wiggle room...

Warning: compulsory fictitious dialogue below

The generic caller, whom we'll refer to as "John", calls my phone.  I answer, a bit hesitant to talk to someone after the day I've had.

"Hi, Slaughter, my operating system browser doesn't do what I want it to do, and you have to help me because you do computer stuff and I know you."

"Of course I do.  What is your problem?"

"I clicked on a thing and it won't go."

A bit of a frown crosses my face. "A thing? Can you be more specific?"

"My operating system says my credit card statement is illegal."

I hold the laughter back.  The explanation is like calling your monitor a modem.  "Riiiight... what were you doing when this happened?"

"I clicked the folder to bring up my credit card statement page."

Okay, so this is starting to make more sense.  Based on their lack of technical understanding, the "folder" is more likely the Firefox shortcut that I placed on their desktop.  The homepage was their "credit card" website, so this is making more sense.

"Then I clicked a thing and a screen comes up and my statement didn't download.  It said something about something being illegal.  Am I in trouble?"

"No, you're not in trouble.  What does that screen say, the one that was talking about something illegal?"

"What screen?  I closed it."

A bit of frustration is starting to build, but I hold it back.  All those installers and prompts from Microsoft Windows that one popular operating system have made the majority of people click-happy.  If there's a screen that they're not interested in, keep clicking that "next" or "continue" button in the lower-right corner until they're gone.  "Okay, I need you to go through everything you did before, but don't do anything when that screen appears that talks about illegal stuff."

"Okay.  I just logged in.  Now I click the 'my e-statements' button."

Again, I hold the laughter back.  He calls it a button, I call it a link.  you know, on a webpage.

"Now there's nothing, and I don't have my statement, and I don't know what to do."

Obviously, John is a bit anxious, so I need to calm him down a bit.  "Slow down, buddy, take a deep breath.  Now, where was that illegal screen you were talking about?"

"I don't know.  It isn't here anymore."

To hell with that.  It is obvious to me now that John's problem has far more to do with an inability to view this "e-statement" than anything about illegal stuff.  No three-letter acronym law agencies, no dire warnings, hell, not even an actual error.  Maybe there was an error in John's brain.  "Okay, well, let's not worry about that.  That button--is it really a button, or is it a link?"

"Oh, I guess it's a link from my operating system."

Now I've done it.  Correct one wrong thing, I gotta correct them all.  "Not your operating system John... what does the title of the window say?"

"It says capital one credit card dash online bill statement thing blah blah dash a big long number."

"Right, but at the end it says something, right?"

"Um... eight four three seven six eight five nine nine two four dash mozzarella fire sticks."

"Okay, wait... what?"

"It says mozerrella fire foxes."

"You mean Mozilla Firefox?"

"Right.  That's what I said."

This is where I spend thirty minutes trying to explain some fundamental differences.  You know, like what the operating system is versus an application that runs within the OS.  Or what about folders versus files?  Icons versus desktops?  Yeah, it gets a bit skewed...

"Okay, John, so what you're saying is that your PDF won't open when you download it.  Right?"

"Yes.  That's what I said at the beginning."

Now my face is getting red.  All that chatter trying to sum up these fundamental things that he'd gotten so fundamentally wrong in such a small space of time had really cut my fuse short.  Now he's lying.  For the sake of time, since I've now been on this call for about two hours longer than I wanted, I decided to let that one slide.  "Okay, just double-click that top thing in the downloads window, and tell me what happens."

"Okay.  I double-clicked it, and now has this browser window open."

I almost fell over.  Did he just use the proper term for something?  "Okay.  In that URL bar at the top, where your web addresses go, what does it say?"

"It says file semicolon backslash backslash see semicolon backslash doc you squiggly one backslash..."

Seriously.  I'd spent all day, and now he's not even trying.  Browser URL's don't use backslashes or semicolons, at least not until way after the protocol and the domain name.  There are three front slashes, know to the techie world proper simply as slashes.  He's actually seeing "file:///c:/docum~1/...", with more at the end, but I just stopped listening at this point.  And this is where my compulsory fictitious story ends.

You see, I really hate this thing that happens when a "lay-person" (pronounced by some as "idiot") gets on the phone.  They start qualifying things incorrectly--saying "backslash" instead of "slash"--and blatantly skipping things or lying.  They don't read important screens.  They don't give anything useful, and even start out the conversation by acting ridiculously idiotic, using phrases that are so blatantly vague as to boggle the mind; were they to actually listen to their words even a day later through a recorder or some such they wouldn't have a clue either.

But the expectation is there that anyone that "does computer stuff" will obviously just be able to fix it.  And yes, sometimes--or even oftentimes--when I fix a computer, it can be done really quickly in what would seem like magical means.  The reality is that it isn't that magical, and I explain what I'm doing so they have a chance to comprehend it.

These people get stupid on the phone when there's a "techie" on the other end and the subject is computers.  About 80% of the stuff they spout out is rubbish or speech patterns that only vaguely resemble human speech, and the other 20% is over-quantified or just plain wrong.

So here is what you do to keep me from backslashing you when you call:

1. If there's a slash character, don't say "backslash" or "forward slash", just say "slash"; it's not as specific, but being less specific is better than saying the wrong thing (imagine the difference if you were to transpose "cougar" with "striped cat" when referring to an animal attacking a human).
2. If there's a colon, don't try saying it is a semicolon.  I know there's only one pixel difference, but it is easier to say "colon" than "semicolon".
3. Only be as technical as I ask.
   1. if I ask what the title of the window is, don't use words like "operating system", "browser", or anything else that is not specifically in that window.
   2. If I ask what you clicked, just tell me what it was.  "A little picture of a red thing" is far more helpful than "I went to my microsoft office desktop operating system and opened my bank account": the first is vague, but the second one is just plain wrong.

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