Where Did the Ampersand Come From?
Everyone knows that the symbol “&” means “and,” even if they don’t know that the real name of that symbol is ampersand. This symbol was invented by a Roman, Marius Tiro, in ancient times, along with about 5,000 other shorthand symbols. But of all his symbols, only the ampersand has survived. Tiro created the ampersand by joining
” …. An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the word logical conjunction “and”. The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, which is Latin for “and”. It was traditionally regarded as the last character of the English alphabet. The name derives from the phrase “and per se and”, meaning “and [the symbol which] by itself [is] and”. The Scottish English name for the ampersand is epershand, derived from “et per se and” with the same meaning. So, we conclude that as it is Latin in origin, it would stand to reason that it would be in use in most European languages. Addionally, the phrase et cetera can be appreviated to &c, as the ampersand originally stood for the Latin et. Crap, I just learned something on a lazy day off, that has to have violated some rule.
