Time to reprint again the genuine history of the symbol, which doesn’t match the standard etymology.
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I’ve always been bothered by the bizarre-sounding etymology of Ampersand. The symbol itself is no mystery: just a stylized version of et. But the usual etymology for the name doesn’t make a lick of sense. Supposedly some people said and-per-se while others said and. The symbol was meant to provide an alternative between both versions, thus
[either] and-per-se [or] and
got condensed to Ampersand.
This morning I took the time to check it. Turns out I was right about the usual story: nobody ever said and-per-se as an alternative for and. But the real story is even stranger! Lots of people did in fact say and-per-se-and. It was a peculiar recitation method in English schools 200 years ago, meant to provide audible bracketing for a single syllable or letter. A per se A, Is per se Is, And per se And. If you didn’t hear the single syllable at the start, per-se gave you a second chance to hear it clearly. The habit continued in real life, similar to the more recent A as in Alpha.
From a rather roguish set of essays on language written in 1830:
Odd that a classroom method of reciting short words got attached to this one character, but not to other symbols or words.
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