First of all, don’t call me a brat. That is rude, especially coming from a fellow Fannibal.
Second of all, it used to be considered a letter. I was on mobile earlier and couldn’t link to sources properly, hence i said “I think”. Now that I’m on my laptop, here we go:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/15/from-a-to-ampersand
Until as recently as the early 1900s, “&” was considered a letter of the alphabet and listed after Z in 27th position. To avoid confusion with the word “and”, anyone reciting the alphabet would add “per se” (“by itself”) to its name, so that the alphabet ended “X, Y, Z and per se &”. This final “and per se and” eventually ran together, and the “ampersand” was born.
https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2015/04/03/history-of-ampersands-typography/
“ In a twist on the traditional story, the logogram ‘&’ came way before the word it now represents, ‘ampersand’. It was once the 27th letter of the alphabet, derived from the Roman word for and: ‘et’. When ancient Roman scribes were scribbling away in Roman Cursive around the 1st century AD, they had a tendency to connect to two letters into a ligature.
The word ampersand evolved by a process called mondegreen — when a new word comes from the common mistaken pronunciation of something else. British schoolchildren in the 1800s would recite the alphabet, concluding with “X, Y, Z, and per say &.” They inserted the “per say” so to indicate ‘&’ was by itself rather than ending the string of letters with a hanging conjunction.
Clearly it wasn’t a perfect solution, as over time the children slurred the words together to create the word ampersand. Over time, it was dropped from the alphabet, like many fascinating characters before it. But it was added to dictionaries starting in 1837.”
http://blog.dictionary.com/ampersand/
“The word “ampersand” came many years later when “&” was actually part of the English alphabet. In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the &. It would have been confusing to say “X, Y, Z, and.” Rather, the students said, “and per se and.” “Per se” means “by itself,” so the students were essentially saying, “X, Y, Z, and by itself and.” Over time, “and per se and” was slurred together into the word we use today:ampersand. When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen.“
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/06/where-the-ampersand-symbol-and-name-came-from/
“The name for the symbol, “ampersand”, didn’t commonly come into use until the 19th century, from “and per se and”, meaning more or less: “and [the symbol] by itself is and”. Classically, when the English alphabet was spoken, “per se” commonly preceded any letter of the alphabet that could be used as a word by itself, such as “A” and “I”, as well “O”, which at one point could be used as a standalone word. Further, the ampersand symbol used to appear at the end of the English alphabet: … X, Y, Z, &. Hence, when spoken: “… X, Y, Z, and per se and”. “
1. Sometimes people know things you don’t.
2. Try to learn something new everyday.
yousharknotpass
2087
gamechangershow
amandla
areudirty
izzy806
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
titsay
