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Rated: E · Book · Educational · #2105953

One hundred facts that are interesting but ultimately useless.

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#904095 added February 6, 2017 at 4:46pm
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The Ampersand
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The Ampersand
- history / linguistics / symbology -

​​The ampersand symbol ("&") derives from "et" (Latin for "and"). Over time, the letters of "et" fused together to form a single glyph.

The term "ampersand" is believed to derive from the early 1800s, when the character was included as the last official letter of the English alphabet. Students reciting the alphabet would finish the sequence with, "X, Y, Z, and per se and." Over time, the "and per se and" became corrupted to "ampersand".


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