Chat-Speak Invades the Classroom

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 9/19/02 2:44:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mam at THEWORLD.COM
writes:

>  Your description has
>  the cross-stroke moving right-to-left, against the general flow, and
>  ending up on the "wrong" side for proceeding to the next word. Mine
>  looks like a plus sign with a "cloverleaf" (as in highway interchange)
>  loop in the upper-left quadrant.

Yes, my aunt's way of writing the ampersand does leave the pen (actually she
always used a pencil on music books) going in the wrong direction.  However,
remember that she was annotating music, not writing blocks of text.  The note
following the "and" might be on the next line, or in the next measure, or if
there are sixteenth notes a ways to the right.  Or the note might be well up
or down the staff from the preceding "and" note.  Any which a way, there is a
good probablility of a sizable jump between the "and" and the next beat, so
going against the general flow is not a major consideration.  In fact, she
might deliberately end her ampersands with a leftward movement so that she
forces herself to pick up the pen and properly position it for the next
numbered note, rather than being sloppy and simply putting it always at the
same distance from the preceding and.

(Odd. MWCD10 does not list "and" as a noun.)

           - Jim Landau

"What's a 64th note?  Either a short interval or a long correspondence."
                                            - the Pine Tree Girl