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| image by me |
It is a ligature, formed between the roman letters e and t, which together meant "and". The word "ampersand" comes from the conflation of the phrase "and per se and". Thousands of english schoolchildren once said "and per se and", each time they passed a letter in the alphabet that, by it self, was a word. And thus the words were worn out, and worn down until only the "ampersand" remained. *1
The hugeness of it's history is not reflected in the size of the character.But a character, is never limited to it's physical size. And as a feature of the mind, the ampersand is enourmous. The ampersand has the power to bring together sentences, and concepts, people and loose words. Though, sadly, it is seldom used this way anymore.
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| Picture by Edmerritt |
Now the ampersand has lost much of it's use & is mostly found in typographically cognicient works, like in the titles of law firms, movie titles (or credits). As a word of use, it has simply lost some - but perhaps by only bringing it out on special occasions, we have elevated the ampersand to a higher status.
Listen to the word - ampersand; it's beautiful. Ampersand is a long full word, that captures a huge importance concept in language, in a tiny tiny letter- it self a ligature.
Knowledge about characters like the ampersand is not crucial to our existence. We do fine without it, and yet as I wrote elsewhere, our lives can be enriched by the reflection upon, and and knowledge about the little things we surround ourselves with every day.
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| Photo by Bijoubaby |
Music for your reading - By Jim Guthrie, on the Album "Sword & Sworcery EP - The Ballad of the Space Babies", song name "Little Furnace".
*1: For a better understanding of the tendency of phrases to become words; try to say "and per se and" very fast ten times in a row.
