[Ads-l] Happy Þornsday!

Mark Mandel markamandel at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jun 9 23:12:58 UTC 2020


https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=ampersand
ampersand (n.)
1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning "(the character) '&' by itself
is 'and' " (a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English). An
earlier form of it was colloquial ampassy (1706). The distinction is to
avoid confusion with & in such formations as &c., a once common way of
writing etc. (the et in et cetera is Latin for "and"). The letters a, I,
and o also formerly (15c.-16c.) were written a per se, etc., especially
when standing alone as words.

The symbol is based on the Latin word et "and," and comes from an old Roman
system of shorthand signs (ligatures) attested in Pompeiian graffiti, and
not (as sometimes stated) from the Tironian Notes, which was a different
form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus Tullius
Tiro, which used a different symbol, something like a reversed capital
gamma, to indicate et. This Tironian symbol was maintained by some medieval
scribes, including Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with
a symbol like a numeral 7 to indicate the word and.

In old schoolbooks the ampersand was printed at the end of the alphabet and
thus by 1880s the word ampersand had acquired a slang sense of "posterior,
rear end, hindquarters."

On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 6:50 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> Is "and per se 'and'" an eggcorn for "ampersand"? Or vice versa?
>
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2020, 3:20 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, "X, Y, Z, and per-se *and*". I've known of its place in the alphabet
> > almost since I could read. My parents had, and I think I've kept it, a
> > Peter Piper book, with the original rhymes (
> > https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25027/25027-h/25027-h.htm) and modern,
> > i.e.
> > ca. 1930's illustrations based on the originals you can see at the link.
> > But it had an extra page, for *&*, whose rhyme as I recall was not in the
> > pattern of the others, and which ended
> >
> > So we have had to print this page on *&*paper.
> >
> > And they did!
> >
> > It's not English in origin AFAIK, but rather a Latin ligature for *et*.
> >
> > MAM
> > Order of Palindromic and Self-Reflective Initials
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 3:08 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > According to no less a source than an old Ripley's Believe It or Not
> > > cartoon, "&" was formerly the "twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet."
> > > (Makes sense when you consider the old form "&c.").
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 2:31 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I don't understand. What about Ƿ & Ᵹ, and "quantity"?
> > > >
> > > > MAM
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2020, 10:18 AM Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi Mark! Thanks for celebrating.
> > > > >
> > > > > It is still there. I don’t know how you got the “wynnyogh"
> > transformed
> > > > > into “quantity” though.
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/thorn.html
> > > > >
> > > > > Michael Everson
> > > > >
> > > > > > On 9 Jun 2020, at 12:56, Mark Mandel <markamandel at GMAIL.COM>
> > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Þornsday, 1994-06-09, CEN/TC304 resolved that in a default
> > > > > multilingual European sort, ÞORN shall be sorted as a separate
> letter
> > > > after
> > > > > Z. Subsequently, ISO/TC37/SC2/WG3 resolved that in its work on
> > > > alphabetical
> > > > > ordering, ÞORN shall be sorted as a separate letter after Z. Most
> > > > recently,
> > > > > JTC1/SC22/WG20 resolved that in its work of producing a default
> > > > > multilingual sort for ISO/IEC 10646, ÞORN shall be sorted as a
> > separate
> > > > > letter after Z.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Copied years ago from
> > > > > >
> > > > > > http://www.evertype.com/standards/quantity/thorn.html
> > > > > > <http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/thorn.html>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > which is now *404 Not found*.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Mark Mandel
> > > > >
> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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