I am neither micro nor soft, thank you very much, but \ to me is "backwhack". Which is odd, because I never use plain "whack" for anything. "forward whack", rarely, if the / is in close proximity to backwhacks. Normally just "slash" or "forward slash", though.

And I've called * "splat" ever since someone described to me how it looks like a bug hitting a windshield at high velocity. Perl6 will reward this tendency, I believe.