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Learn the origin, history, and usage of the symbol &, which stands for the word and. Find examples, related words, and podcast entries on ampersand.
Learn about the history and evolution of the ampersand symbol (&), which stems from the Latin word et meaning \"and.\" Discover how it is used in brands, music, literature, and programming.
- Etymology
- History
- Similar Characters
- Writing The Ampersand
- Usage
- Computing
- See Also
- External Links
Traditionally in English, when spelling aloud, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and "O") was referred to by the Latin expression per se ('by itself'), as in "per se A" or "A per se A". The character &, when used by itself as opposed to more extended forms such as &c., was similarly referred to as "and per se and".Th...
The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century AD and the old Roman cursive, in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form a ligature (Evolution of the ampersand – figure 1). In the later and more flowing New Roman Cursive, ligatures of all kinds were extremely common; figures 2 and 3 from the middle of 4th century ar...
In Irish and Scottish Gaelic, the character ⁊ (U+204A ⁊ TIRONIAN SIGN ET) is used in place of the ampersand. This character is a survival of Tironian notes, a medieval shorthand system. This character is known as the Tironian Et in English, the agus in Irish, and the agusanin Scottish Gaelic. The logical conjunction symbol, ∧, is often pronounced "...
In everyday handwriting, the ampersand is sometimes simplified in design as a large lowercase epsilon Ɛ or a reversed numeral 3, superimposed by a vertical line.The ampersand is also sometimes shown as an epsilon with a vertical line above and below it or a dot above and below it. The plus sign + (itself based on an et-ligature) is often informally...
Ampersands are commonly seen in business names formed from a partnership of two or more people, such as Johnson & Johnson, Dolce & Gabbana, Marks & Spencer, and Tiffany & Co., as well as some abbreviations containing the word and, such as AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph), A&P (supermarkets), P&O (originally "Peninsular and Oriental", shippin...
Encoding and display
The character in Unicode is U+0026 & AMPERSAND (&, &); this is inherited from the same value in ASCII. Apart from this, Unicode also has the following variants: 1. U+FE60 ﹠ SMALL AMPERSAND(fullwidth CJK ideograph for East Asian typography) 2. U+FF06 ＆ FULLWIDTH AMPERSAND (in block Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms) 3. U+214B ⅋ TURNED AMPERSAND (in block Letterlike Symbols) 4. U+1F670 🙰 SCRIPT LIGATURE ET ORNAMENT 5. U+1F671 🙱 HEAVY SCRIPT LIGATURE ET ORNAMENT 6. U+1F672 🙲 LIGATURE OPEN...
Programming languages
In the 20th century, following the development of formal logic, the ampersand became a commonly used logical notation for the binary operator or sentential connective AND. This usage was adopted in computing. Many languages with syntax derived from C, including C++, Perl,and more differentiate between: 1. & for bitwise AND (4 & 2) is zero, (4 & 5)is 4. 2. && for short-circuit logical AND (4 && 2)is true. In C, C++, and Go, a prefix & is a unary operator denoting the address in memory of the a...
Text markup
In SGML, XML, and HTML, the ampersand is used to introduce an SGML entity, such as (for non-breaking space) or α (for the Greek letter α). The HTML and XML encoding for the ampersand character is the entity &. This can create a problem known as delimiter collision when converting text into one of these markup languages. For instance, when putting URLs or other material containing ampersands into XML format files such as RSS files the & must be replaced with & or they are...
"The History of 'Ampersand'". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 27 July 2022."Ask the Editor: Ampersand", video at Merriam-Webster.com (2:01). Retrieved 2013-10-18 Archived 19 October 2013 at the Wayback MachineFont of 52 ampersands, designed by Frederic GoudyLearn how the symbol & evolved from a Latin ligature to a 27th letter of the alphabet and a word in English. Discover the origin and meaning of the phrase '& per se, and' and how it became ampersand.
Mar 1, 2023 · Learn what an ampersand (&) is, where it comes from, and when to use it in writing. Find out the difference between formal and informal writing, and see examples of ampersands in names, titles, lists, and citations.
Learn the history and usage of the ampersand (&) in formal and informal writing. Find out when to use it as part of a name, a clause, or a shorthand for \"and\".
Ampersand [&] is a shortened version of the term “and per se and.”. It replaces the word “and” to explain the relationship between two words. You should always use the word “and” whenever possible, but there are specific rules for correct ampersand use with official names, informal writing, and some word connections.
