Long ago, but not that long ago, the English alphabet had 27 letters, rather than the current 26. In fact, it even had a starring role in the singsong nursery rhymes used to teach children their ABCs. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

That symbol is & , also known as the ampersand, meaning the word “and.” It’s still widely used today, although mostly as a stylistic choice to make word combinations look sleek or distinctive – like Ben & Jerry’s, Dungeons & Dragons , Simon & Garfunkel, and so on.

The story starts, as many things do, with the Romans and the Latin language. The Latin word for “and” is “et,” but these two letters would frequently become squished together when scribes were scrawling texts in a rush. The

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