What is & called and why? The symbol “&” is called the ampersand, which actually means “and, by itself, and”. It is also a shorthand version of the Latin word “et”.
These days, we use the ampersand as a symbol for “and”. It is also used in programming language. It is not generally acceptable to use it in formal writing, but it is used informally and in a lot of company names. Ben & Jerry’s, AT&T, Black & Decker, for just a few examples. Another interesting use of the & is in movie credits. If two writers worked on a movie separately, their names are joined with “and”. If they worked on the movie as a team, their names are joined with “&”.
So, what is & called and why? It is called an ampersand. The symbol looks complicated, but it is simply the cursive version of “et”, Latin for “and”. Written Latin styles gradually changed over the centuries. There are two distinct types of Roman writing, broken up into old Roman cursive and new Roman cursive. New Roman cursive was introduced from about the 1st century BC and continued to be used until about the 3rd century AD. New Roman cursive was used from then on. The old Roman cursive was the faster way of writing the square capitals that Romans are famous for, and it used a lot of ligatures. A ligature is where two or more letters are joined together to make a single character. The ampersand appeared in the 1st century AD. When “e” and “t” were written with a ligature, they were joined together into a single character. Over the centuries this evolved into the & that we know today and it was set firmly with the invention of the printing press in 1455.
For a long time, the & symbol was at the end of the alphabet and was taught to children as the 27th letter. It was read as “et” to begin with but transitioned to “and” over time. “Et” isn’t actually a letter, but it was a taught along with the alphabet, probably because educators felt it was important for people to know.
When children learned and recited the alphabet, they were taught to differentiate the letters that could also be words (A, I, O) by using the Latin expression “per se”, which means “by itself”. So, they would say, “A, per se, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, per se, I, J, K …….” When they got to the end of the alphabet, they would say, “X, Y, Z, et, per se, et. The “et” became “and” and children would say, “and, per se, and.” Try saying “and per se and” fast. What do you get? You get “ampersand”. And that’s how it got its name. By 1837, the name for the character had entered English usage as “ampersand”.
An early rhyme to help children learn the alphabet, called “Apple Pie ABC”, ends with the ampersand. “X, Y, Z, and &, All wished for a piece in hand.” This rhyme is from 17th century England and the use of the number of syllables and “hand” probably shows that the character was read as “and per se and”.
When a new word is made by breaking apart or joining together words, it is known as rebracketing. Ampersand is an excellent example of a word that has been rebracketed. There are many more. Here are two examples. “Nickname” came from “eke name”. “Eke” meant familiar, and after about 1500, “an eke name” became “a nickname”. “Alligator” is another example. “Alligator” came from the Spanish “el lagarto”, which means “the lizard”. These words were mispronounced and the English word “alligator” was created. There are many other examples, if you google it.
The ampersand was dropped from the alphabet in the late 19th century and now we don’t use it as much as we used to. Most people don’t know what it is called.
So, the & is called “ampersand” because children recited it as “and per se and”. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/ampersand/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pie_ABC
https://web.archive.org/web/20080508140613/http://www.word-detective.com/052003.html
https://www.dictionary.com/e/ampersand/
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-ampersand-symbol-1689083
https://raindance.org/what-an-ampersand-means-in-screenwriting-credits
https://medium.com/@jonhudson.main/the-old-27th-letter-of-the-english-alphabet-d073c777db26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebracketing
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/53546/when-did-stop-being-taught-alongside-the-alphabet