Etymology
The word ampersand is a conflation of the phrase "and per se and", meaning "and by itself and".
Traditionally, in English-speaking schools when reciting the alphabet, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and, at one point, "O") was preceded by the Latin expression per se ("by itself"). Also, it was common practice to add at the end of the alphabet the "&" sign as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z and per se and". This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term crept into common English usage by around 1837. However, in contrast to the other 26, the ampersand is not a phoneme, and other letters that were dropped from the English alphabet, such as the Old English thorn were true phonemes.
Through popular etymology, it has been falsely claimed that André-Marie Ampère used the symbol in his widely read publications, and that people began calling the new shape "Ampère's and".
Read more about this topic: Ampersand
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
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