Chat-Speak Invades the Classroom

[Duane Campbell]

On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 13:50:24 -0400 Grant Barrett
<gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG> writes:
> I remember in the second grade I consistently used "+" in place of
> "and."

I had to decipher some hand written notes from sometime before WWI. My
godfather (b. 1892) was transcribing what his grandmother told him about
the difficulties his grandfather had getting paid for building the local
Presbyterian church (built 1853). He used an "X" to indicate "not"
("Grandpa did X get paid") and a slash (/) to indicate "the,"  or
sometimes in combination -- e.g., "/y" for "they." I don't know whether
this was idiosyncratic or a convention of the time. FWIW, he was Andover
and Yale.

I too sometimes use "+" and sometimes the broken ankh for a hand written
ampersand.

D