Wow…I didn’t know that LOL

ampersand? hmm.. weird. :l

HEYYYYYY THATS SOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!

AND PER SE AND!

grrrrrrrrr

Shouldn’t that be “…every day?”?

I’m interested in the symbols that are combined letters — rather like the ampersand but still recognizable in themselves: things such as the combined “ae” in “encyclopædia” and the “oe” in “fœtor.”

Interesting fact to know…! Would love to know more of such interesting facts.

I agree with Jon!

How swell that is!How about you tell us about œ & æ?

LOL alysha, jons one big nerd

You fixed it! I’m so proud….

Gabbana, not Gabana. Come on, you’re the dictionary! I work as a copy editor, and you gotta check your proper nouns!

It is great to learn new things. This was very interesting to me. I wonder if my kids know? Usually when I tell them some bit of info, they look at me and sigh. “I know mom”. LOL

i agree with Jon as well. the origins of these combined letters is interesting.

Really good to know, fun to learn new things everyday. Good times.

Cool story.
I want to hear about the rise and fall of the ‘¢’ symbol.

When I was a kid, my dad told me that the dollar sign “$” was originally created to symbolize the ‘United States’ by using/combining the letters “U” and “S”.

First, I have to emphasize how sometimes the ‘dollar sign’ is written/transcribed with 2 lines that are parallel and close to one another going down its center, whereas the above typed keyboard version only has 1.

Anyway, if you write the letter “U” (skinny-like / with its vertical lines fairly close together) and then you write the letter “S” over it – and if you then take into account how over time people may have just stopped including the ‘curve’ part on the bottom of the letter “U” (which is easily conceivable for a multitude of reasons: unenlightenment to the actual original shape or meaning of the sign/character, simple laziness, ect.) – it seems as though it could be true.

Your blog brought about this memory for me, so I was wondering if you and others thought it was also interesting and maybe I could then get my answer through ‘the hot word’…

Thank You

Oh… And…

I definitely agree with Jon’s comment (9/2/11 2:09pm) too –

What the !%$! is up with those letters like in the word “encyclopædia”???

Thank You again

I’m just going to use this word to impress my mom into buying me an ipod (unfortunately my langauge arts grade isn’t very high, but its getting better!)

Thanks for the fun knowledge!

Well can’t we just add “&” back to the alphabet as “XY&Z”?

A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P,
Q-R-S, T-U-V, W, X, Y-Z- &
Now I know these ABC’s, next time won’t you sing with me
XD

Thats really interesting!! haha and per se and!

When I was young we used to say the vowels as A, E, I, O, U, &(nice use of today’s word huh!) sometimes Y and W. I get the Y but “W”??? If not this then I agree on Joined letters with Jon and Alysha. And how do you know when to use them and how to pronounce them when spelling.

it’s “Dolce & Gabbana” with 2 B’s not Gabana. Dictionary.com should do some spell check.

Wow! I am to tell this to my friends… So that they view me as super smart. Lol!

That’s amazing! I love it!

I would love to learn about this little guy here: ~

I honestly have no idea what the name for it is or what it’s officially supposed to be used for. I always just called it a “squiggly.”

I agree with Chika. Squiggly? I call it a Wavy… Sometimes a Coof…

Chika, it’s called a tilde – but I have no idea why.

Awesome post. &c was the really interesting part, as a stand-in for etc.

Come to think of it, what is ‘etcetera’ all about? I should look it up…

wow!that was just awesome i was not even thought that in my most weird dream!
love to visit dic…..com!
lolx!

I agree that is interestint, however I always thought that the “@” was the ampersand. So wthat is “@” called?

That is new to me. What a long history such a word has! Fantastic!!

That was really interesting. I’ve always wondered where & came from but never got around to looking it up! No need now.

Origin of the $ or # or @ or ! or ?

wow i didnt knew it thanx 2 dictionary .com!!!!!!!!!!!1

COOOOOOOOLLLLL….

& has a great history. There are over thousand alphabets in china, while our 27 th alphabet wins the linguistic race

wow….cool, i think thats one thing we should know from the past…

don’t know &

Words are sexy.

Huh. So “ampersand” is slurred “and per se and”? How long do you think it will be until “LMNOP” becomes one character, “Ellamenopee?” I remember when I first learned the alphabet and I was SO sure that it was only one letter. LOL

that was interesting

And per se and. That is weird.

I agree with jon im kinda confused `bout the a&e stuck together or the o&e
no 1 really explained it to me but hope u can help me out and hey jon isnt nerd!!

Very informative and will share with my English class.

Ethan, the reason you used to say “sometimes Y and W” is because W is what linguists call a semivowel. Try to pronounce a “W” sound very slowly and it kind of sounds like “oooooooo-uh” or something. In Italian, there is no Y or W, so the letter I is sometimes used to make a Y sound (as in “spiacente”) and U is sometimes used to make a W sound (as in “scuola”).

Very cool – thanks. I had an international technology instructor ask me once about the symbol “@”. We refer to it as the “at” symbol, but he would ask his students if they knew of another name for it. One of his northern European students referred to it as a “schnabel A”, with the “schnabel” being the word for what an elephant has on its face – its trunck. Wonder if there is another name for the “@” symbol.

@Ethan – Some times Y and **W**?? what the heck? I have NEVER heard W as a part time vowel! :O

This was a very fun and interesting article! I love etymology!

Dictionary.com…………………what about @

A lot of English words or symbols have interesting histories.

It was fun reading this. Can’t wait for more articles on this site .

Quite interesting indeed! I enjoyed reading every bit of info on this page.

I am wondering what is the origin of “et al.” is

wonderful…… to know…. about “and per se and”………..

w, x, y, z, and ampersand

Is the ae in “encyclopædia (as well as the “œ”) a diphthong, which are two vowels combined to form one sound? I am not sure, just me thinking. I should have paid more attention in class!
H Michael

so cool

@Evan

et cetera, like most abbreviations we use (e.g., i.e., etc.) is a Latin phrase. “et,” as this article pointed out, means “and,” and “cetera” means “the rest.” Therefore, et cetera means “and the rest.”

Another character/letter that is no longer in the alphabet, in addition to the thorn, is the yogh. The thorn looks like a lower case p with the line extended above the loop, not like a “y” as the linked article on “the extinction…” suggests. Also, “Ye Olde Bookshoppe,” and names like that, contrary to what the linked article suggests, is a mistake. When people wrote the thorn incorrectly, it looked like a “y.” Thus, it’s simply “The Old Bookshop,” because the thorn was essentially one character for the sound we now use “th” to represent.

Also, the reason “w” could be said to be a vowel is because, in Middle English, you pronounced every letter, and sometimes “w” was somewhat like a vowel. As for the “wynn” mentioned in the linked article, there were now double-character vowel sounds in Middle English: “oo” for example. You pronounced both “o”s independently, but that eventually slurred into the way we now pronounce “oo”s.

These dictionary.com articles quite oversimplify the progressions associated with how words and characters have changed and sometimes even have glaring mistakes. Always verify these accounts with other sources.

Also, a tilde is the name of the character above the Spanish “n” that gives an almost “y” sound to the character. I think that if someone calls the ~ a tilde, they’re using the term incorrectly. I’m not sure why most people use ~, but it can mean “approximately” in math, especially with two on top of each other like a curvy equal-to sign.

The character & is called amperesand because it was used (and popularized) by the French physicist Andre Ampere (for whom the unit of electrical current is also named).

omg thats soooooo intresting i didnt know that!! lol

Chika, as Evan said it’s called a tilde – pronounced “till-deh” and it means “approximately.” It’s typical use is similar to the equal sign “=” although it can be used for other purposes, as well.

An example might be: 1.929327 + 2.10003 ~ 4

god! come on, alysha “&” emily, jon IS A NERDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD (like moi)

Wowie, wowie, wow!

That name’s really bizarre!

wow u guys are such nerds…who cares about the history of &

THANK YOU so much for this information. I have been a fan of the shape of the ampersand and have loved it’s name. So, thank you for sharing this.

I would love to learn more about how the origins of the period, comma, question mark, and exclamation point! Those are four request, but I thought I’d put them out there, anyway.

Thanks, again. Fascinating!

Yaar, why does it just have to change???

Actually, “&c.” means, “and so forth.”

[...] Amper Sand Et Cetra after Cetra had her lunch. — Filling and it tastes good too, with ZZZZZZs all in a bunch. — ‘In your dreams,’ said Cetra. — We wouldn’t have it any Other Way. — & come to think of it simplistic like — Wees got nothing much to say. –>>L.T.Rhyme [...]

@Lars “Ampere sand” lol you crack me up…

I recently read of someone who called it “and per cent” because “it’s like a per cent sign, but it means ‘and’…”

Wikipedia has a good write-up on the dipthongs/ligatures and missing letters from Old English on their page for English Language.

The oe and ae ligatures come from Greek and latin where they either used them as we see them in the modern English or where they had a letter we do not have. So oe for example sometimes represents Greek omega or big-o. Ae was pronounced igh in Latin (rhymes with high). It appears in words like Caesar. This was originally pronounced kigh-ser, hence the German emperor, the kaiser, in the 1800s. Also why the Russians had a tsar or czar as their king.

As for w being a semivowel, Britons don’t find thus strange, since the welsh language uses w as “oo”. Hence cwm, a kind of hill, is pronounced koom.

I hate the ampersand. Its just a combination of the ‘a’ sound the ‘n’ sound & the ‘d’ sound.

What a fantastically selected piece of information. I enjoyed the research you chose to include in the article. Your opener made it relevant and catching. Well done. Thoughtful article.

-Tatiana

I’ve learned something new! Thank you. I’d just like to add, somewhat related, that I think Americans use Zee instead of Zed because Zed doesn’t rhyme with Vee. I have no proof; just sayin’.

I would have never theorized that.

______

All those unusual archaic combinations of vowels you find in old and middle English/German oe ae. etc. are what is called “ablaut”

Think of the six vowels as slight variations of one sound or one vowel. The sounds the open mouth makes. Each language has a slight difference in their pronunciation. Before spelling became standardized, they weren’t always clear how to indicate the subtle distinctions.

Ablaut is the evolution over time of that one vowel’s subtle variations, simplified into six distinctly separate independent sounds/letters A E I O U

Ablaut Is the English evolution of the vowel into 6 separate distinctions to do what the Umlaut still does by way of additional variation in Germanic languages

Ablaut is the evolution of Umlaut they are the same thing more or less

Betcha didn’t know that. Huh?

LMNOP, my dear dear dear dear Watson…. LMNOP!

And: why is @ used for “at”? I always thought it looked like around (a-round).

And therefore it is twentyseventh star of the ancient astrology
,astronomy and what not for in the ancient hindu religeon there are 27 distinct star of birth prescribed as per birth time & therefore is the last star of the alphabet it is my opinion only.

What about the squiggly?! Or whatever it’s called. This thing; ~

The nerve! The gall! The chutzpah! The overweening ego! No matter how many times I see it, it still just astounds me.

I thought that the purpose of coming to a dictionary site, was to have the dictionary tell us the meanings and histories of words, not for us to tell the dictionary, and others. Lars has many compatriots; these threads are riddled with them. Dictionary.com spent a hundred hours and a couple of thousand dollars to research this item, but Lars knows better. The site says that the term Ms has been in use since the early 1600s, but I didn’t hear it till Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan found it and popularized it in the ’60s, so I “know” that they invented it then. My mind(?) is made up. Don’t confuse me with the truth.

That was cool and interesting. I wish & was still apart of the alphabet so I could slack off more!

If it was slurred into ampersand, then how come there is no ampersand in the alphabet?

Who in removed such a great and mighty letter?

Font = Type Face + Style + Size

Arial is a type face. Italic is a style. 10 is a size. Arial Italic 10 is a font.

We have different words because they have different meanings.

So that explains the & shape, what about writing it as a 3 reflected across a vertical axis with a vertical line through the middle? Is that the same origin just a variant?

Every day is a school day and this is my piece of learning for today! Thanks!

One Ton Tomato …… Guantanamera

And per se, so when I write rum&coke actually it should rum and per se coke (kidding).
Check out S.Nob, or snob, it comes from Oxford where classrooms were separated by a golden fence, with nobility ahead of the fence and those who could afford the tuition behind it, when signing in if you were not a member of the nobility, they would write S. for sine and Nob. for nobilitate.
I learned something here so I gave something, so I can feel even.

What a confusion!!!

“the word ampersand by more than 1,500 years.”?
while English itself hardly has la little more than a thousand?
and a modern English much less?

Here is Old English alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Latin_alphabet

Example of English word “legally”:
ǣwlīċ
http://www.thefullwiki.org/%C7%BDwl%C3%ADce

There are many letters removed from alphabet but still used

For example,
formulæ
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/formul%C3%A6

Chika, ~ is a tilda.

They probably had to get rid of the ampersand so the alphabet song rhymes.

[...] I couldn’t resist writing about it. Over at the hot word (on Dictionary.com) they ask, “What character was removed from the alphabet but is still used every day?” The answer, of course, is the [...]

Evan: It’s called a tilde and it’s used in Spanish to enunciate stress on the letter ‘n’ in most cases. It makes the ‘en-YAY’ sound when placed over the letter itself.

Hope that helped. (:

Fern – ordering a Rum and per se Coke is ordering a Rum and by itself Coke. That is a shot and a chaser and it is no longer a mixed drink.

ill heard of it already

A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-L I said
M-N-O-P-Q-R-S, T-U-V-W, for wed
X and Y and finally Z
I’m exhausted, time for bed.

a b c d e f g h i j kl m n o p q r s t u v w&

Mark,

You’ve told us of the ‘schnabel’ A — I find that Schnabel in German means beak, mouth. No reference to elephants.

In Polish they call this thing ‘małpa’ (that’s an L with a slash through it, pronounced like our w), which means monkey. No idea why.

As Me tells us, oe and ae are from Greek and Latin (respectively). Old English used to have a vowel whose name was pronounced like our ‘ash.’ This was ae (glued together) and was used for the sound in ‘had.’ It appears in the first word of “Beowulf”:
“Hwæt, Wē Gārdena in gārdagum ….”

I don’t know if the OE version is linked to the Latin at all.

Oops … misspelling: not gārdagum but gēardagum: days of yore.

The ‘dagum’ part is ‘of days.’

‘gēar’ is read ‘yar,’ close to our ‘year,’ which is what it means.

I love learning little tid-bits of info like this!! Word origins, arcane words &c.

I learned it as “anpersand” since it matches up with the “and” in and per se and. Was it always “ampersand” or did it change?

I love knowing about the etymology of words. ´Ampersand´ was unknown to me. It is called ´et´ in Spanish.
Have you already dealt with ´lemniscata´?
Thanks,
mr

my dog will be named ampersand.

I always thought it was called And-for-stand ’till my nephew informed me otherwise

I thought that the kids included it in the alphabet before the letter “z”

That way they would sing, “w, x, y, &, z”.
Doh.

The ampersand was never part of the alphabet, regardless of what this article says. It is an abbreviation, not a letter.

@Evan Oh… Thanks for that!

@Mike @ means “at” for example, example555@(at)hotmail.com make sense?

@eyeofdali no one knows, only the people that made it up knows why…

@ evan – et cetera is latin for and so on

The umlaut is the evolution of the diæresis (you see what I did there…), which has been in use for thousands of years in the languages that we now collectively call Greek.The notion of ancient Greek as a unified singular language is somewhat misleading as spellings, pronunciations and grammatical constructs could vary considerably from city-state to city-state. Our entire modern concept of “ancient Greece” is built on a foundation of sand, as the peoples of that region at such a time did not self-identify as Greeks or Hellenes, but rather as Ionians, Spartans, Athenians etc… The diæresis indicates the absence of a dipthong.

& don’t forget ….. @ ie 3 apples @ 15c each…..

Chika, ~ is also used in Portuguese to give the vowels a (ã) and o (õ) a nasal sound in words like avião (airplane), mãe (mother), and opiniões (opinions).

Dictionary on line is a standard dictionary. While writing remarks I suppose words like LOL, HEYYYYYY, SOOOOOO do not appear to be compatible with the high standard of the Dictionary on line. Looks very cheap.

I’ve asked many people to sing the alphabet and no one has ever sung it quite like me. I have no idea as to where I learned to sing it so unique other than to say that I learned it at Juliet Morris Elementary School in Cypress, California. Everyone sings it like this:

A B C D E F G…H I J K L M N O P…Q R S T U V…W X Y and Z. Now I know my ABC’s…won’t you come and play with me?

I sing mine the same for a bit and then it goes off much differently:

A B C D E F G…H I J K L M N…O P Q…R S T…U V W X Y Z. Now I never will forget…how to say my alphabet!

If you’d care to comment, please write to: theepolishprince@yahoo.com

I bet it like 9 letters removed from the alpahbet

& could u please throw some lights on – ‘@’ & ‘?’ & well…thats it!!

1st of all, “Nev” is not my real name. 2nd of all, i am only in 5th grade, so i dont want to read it. 3rd of all……………………. wow! thats interesting!

4th of all, i dont get it

AT ALL!!!!

So many mysteries to our language….

Who knows the one sentence that has every single letter of the alphabet in it(at least once)??????? I DO !!! scroll down to see

“THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG”. (35 letters)

“” PACK MY BOX WITH FIVE DOZEN LIQUOR JUGS” is another sentence (32 letters)

i read a book and it had a school newspaper called “the ampersand” thats so weird
p.s the book was called “geek high”

Wow! That’s actually very interesting! Now I can trick my friends into thinking I’m pretty clever ;D

amberlamps

really enlightening

The history of the word “ak” is quite interesting,and in particular how the ampersand symbol/word was arrived at.Thanks for sharing:~)

info on the pound sign, aka as the hashtag nowadays for twitter-folk please

Whoa… who would’ve known!

I can never recite the alphabet without singing it.

I like to say the alphabet like this, pronounced as a single word:

“Ahbkahdefguhijjkuhlimminoppkwerstuvwicksehs”

haha come on!! everybody should of known this… seriously!

One really needs to provide references, especially for something as blatantly … umm… creative as this misconception! To pass off as fact something so easily proven false… well, my opinion of dictionary.com just dropped several notches. I’m left with only Mark Twain’s wisdom as comfort: “A good storyteller is one who has a good memory… and hopes other people haven’t.”

Why dont they use it now cause it is a cOOl word

Ha, I feel so smart! A while ago, when a saw the ampersand on a sign, I noticed it looked exactly like “Et” (it had to do with the specific font as well). Having learned Latin, I understood the connection. But I never knew how the word came about! Thanks for sharing your wisdom, it’s very interesting!

…X,Y,Z,and.
Use “and” as a letter in a word?

I agree with Lawman.

So now kids say “…W,X, Y, and Z” without even realizing it!! Success!

& tu Brute? I just had to type that

etc stands for et cetera, which is latin for something like, “and other”. So &c makes sense.

Interesting information, but as said previously it should be backed up with some references.

man you all are way behind the times… I was telling my daughter a password to an email account the other day and told her it is yadda yadda yadda…ampersand…yadda yadda yadda. I can’t believe some of you say “I’ve never heard this word before.” or “oh, I didn’t know it was called that.” Certainly, I didn’t know why it was called ampersand but I did know that & was known as ampersand. I swear the level of instruction in the schools nowadays is sooooo substandard. Yikes, what is this country (world) coming to? I live in Utah and the other day, I was at KFC and the girl that took my order asked me, “Can I get a name for your order?” She didn’t say, “Can I get YOUR name.” she said “a name.” So I said, “Uh, yeah, Caesar Chavez.” (I’m female) She looked at me kinda strange. So I asked her, “Do you know who that is?” and she said, “No.” So, I said, “Well, maybe you should have listened better in History class because if it wasn’t for him you may not have been able to get a job here. Maybe tonight when you’re online you should google him.” (She is of hispanic origin) She was mighty perplexed I tell you. I wasn’t picking on her and I am not racist. I just think that children these days do not put a very high value on their education (or heritage for that matter). SAD SAD SAD

So who tagged the image ‘Amerpsand’?

when i was in school i learned with the name of clave mussical and it is at the begining of the pentagram.which is the clave mussical composed by the clave mussical five lines and four spaces.
thank you.

Nobeliever: This is not a theory that can be proven false by any means. It was clearly found on ancient transcriptions, look at the Adobe REFERENCE.

I think that this is a pretty cool article. I honestly didn’t know that & was part of the alphabet ever. Cool to learn new things!

Who Da Thunk It ???

This is interesting… I had read in an etymology book that it was a combination of the word “and” and André-Marie Ampère’s last name (French physicist and mathematician who discovered electromagnetism and the SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere).
My understanding is that he used the letter so much, it became “Ampere’s and” and as you spoke, it changed to “ampersand.”
Both, very valid stories that you can use to enlighten your friends or simple spark up a conversation

Et ceteri in latin means ‘and the others’ not ‘and so on’

Get your facts straight.

That was some cool info!!!!!!!!

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z, and per si &!!!!
Now i know per si and (&) next time why don’t you sing with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bayyyyyybeeeee

Balderdash !?

Same here

i knew that

WHOA COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!! Didnt know that….

This is good stuff; I enjoy reading the history of the &!!!

i think itz kewl dat that uze 2 b a ltr u no wat they say u lern somthin new evryday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now im gona tell my mom bout diz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, dictionary.com spelled Gabbana wrong. Amazing what you can find when you focus on simple things like Gabbana which people don’t usually value, but it’s a proper noun so obviously this shows that many people are just too ignorant and stubborn to notice such things like grammatical errors…

lol my dads romanian and says it like this (pronouncing) ah b ck d e f…ect. he sais it so faast! lol

Wow. cool!

&3&

YAY! emote with the ampersand letter!

awesome!!!

;P

and per se and, ampersand
wow english speakers are so creative. In my language (spanish), & is called et.

Shut up Bob that was great news, thanks dictionary.com

X, Y, Z, AND AMPERSAND?!?!?!? ;D

cool

nvr knew that until now ! great info!!!

the cent symbol

No comment

That is crazy…can’t we just add it back into the alphabet? I think that would be kind of cool to have it back in there…but that’s just me.

I agree with Laura (September 5th, 2011 at 2:33 pm. It’s kinda funny how I always end up singing it, even if I go super fast!

HAHAHAHA MOOT UR SO FUNNY

Can you guys stop posting these i cant do my homework with the distractions

Could you perhaps discover and explain the origin of the pilcrow sign? (¶)

It might also be nice to explain diaereses as well; as in Zoë, or naïve.

someone ask for another name for @ the one i know is that is also call arrova which is part of the measurement of pesantes or weight so @ means 25 pounds so one hundred pounds equals 4@.
thanks.

Ha, @Carlitos, you stole that from Big Bird!!!

woah! @MpEr$@nD!
=
@mPeR & $@nD!!

~ is called a tilda.

ampersand….. sound coolio…. does any one know the origin of using (sic) or . . . . in wiritng a report???

I love it! Is it strange that i spend more time on dictionary.com than I do on Facebook?

I never knew that there was so many things behind just one letter…. crazy isn’t it?

what about the elongated s that you sometimes see in old texts? when and why did that get used?

I real agree on this passage I’m a 89 year old man so I know all about this

ABCD sheep?
LMNO sheep~
MR rocks!

Oh, how I love to learn, and today I learned something very interesting. Thanks for today’s lesson!

I agree with Jon and Alysha. The combined letters confuse me senseless.

listen, i like he simple way that Dictionary.com presents their info… it’s a lot easyer to understand then the crap you shoot out of your mouth! and another thing, stop calling Jon a nerd. i think he was absolutly correct!

Thats so cool!!!! i would love to learn about more weird things.no offense.

Very interesting. I honestly had no knowledge of this. I agree with the whole combined letters confusion as well. What’s up with that?

wow i found this while doing some homework
i already knew this
what i wanna know is what my spelling words are for this week cause i didnt get them all down
anyone in Mr. Christen Hamm’s 6th grade ADV. LA?
anyone?

Thats incredible!

SOOOOO MANY NERRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

i agree with CHANDA, why can’t we just put the & sign back in the alphabet?

that is so awsome i literly use it every day HAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So is that why when I was in kindergarten learning the alphabet we’d alway argue about if it was X,Y, and, Z or if it was X,Y,Z?? (I’m 12 BTW, thats why I can remember this…Haha)

OMG that was very interesting! I never knew and now I feel my life is complete!

WOW! THAT IS AWESOME ! so unexpected! great to know!!!!

I didn’t know that! It was so interesting! I’m going to share it with everyone!

&&&&&&&&

Jennifer, interesting about the $ sign. I have always used just the one line, who knew I was doing it right!!

woah! nice one!

for the very long time i’ve known the symbol and how it’s called, the origin of its name and the fact that it is once a part of the alphabet is a very interesting revelation to me.

geez… anyway, learn something new everyday…

interesting! i love it!!!

I woulve never none…..kool!!!

you can also see the origin in the font: Monotype Corsiva

Again the Romans! we owe them much more than we are willing to admit

so you gave that working girl what she deserved, well done! languagecommand you’re so brave

The change from two lines through the S to one in the $ reflects the reduction in values of the dollar.

TIlde or tilda… well, it had to be called something. Besides, it looks like it’s waltzing a bit. )

knowin stuff is so awesome

Please explain: Why is the letter “W” called “double-u” and not “double-v” as it REALLY appears to be?

Check this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Ampersand_Evolution.svg/500px-Ampersand_Evolution.svg.png

SO COOL! I keep forgetting what that frigging name is. AMPERSAND!!!!!

@Jennifer Encyclopaedia is the more correct way of writing ‘encyclopedia’, still in use in Britain. The entire word is Greek and the paed- comes from παιδ- in παιδεία and it means ‘education’. En- indicates ‘in’ and cyclo- indicates ‘circle’; i.e. well-rounded. So it means well-rounded education.

Now, as regards the ae placed together as one letter, this is the way it was spelled in Latin, taken directly from Greek and also used in Old English.

@ Rick

There was an article here a couple of months ago, about the decline and possible death of cursive handwriting in the techno-youth, because of texting, IMing etc. If you go back to handwriting, as it REALLY was for millenia, you’ll find that it looks like a double U. The shape of the letter changed to make it easier for engravers and printing-letter moulders. Look at pictures of old Roman inscriptions. Names like Claudius became Clavdivs. The spelling and pronunciation of the entire French language migrated because French engravers couldn’t carve out the double-curved S, and substituted the accented E.

Rick-
Good question! I think it’s from a typo

@ lpuis paiz

Spanish clave = French and English clef = musical “key”

The symbol for a “treble clef” looks very much like the ampersand, only backwards, mirror-image, and standing straight up, not leaned over. They are not the same thing.

awesome article, never new that.
I am only writing this to add to this page. It is filled to the brim with comments

many thanks for increasing knowledge.

the word is awesome

What a great article! Wow!

Hey languagecommand – you used the wrong word in the following sentence: “Well, maybe you should have listened better in History class because if it wasn’t for him you may not have been able to get a job here.” The correct word is “might” not may: “you might not have been able to get a job.” It seems as if the number of people who understand the difference between, and correct use of, “may” and “might” is dwindling fast. “May” is correct when the occasion or circumstance is in the future, i.e., “I may stay home tonight” or “If that happens, you may not be able to go.” But the past conditional (“If that had happened,…”) requires the use of “might” (you might not have gone).

@ Jennifer, September 2nd:

I don’t know about the American Dollar, but the former Portuguese currency (before the Euro) was the Escudo and it’s symbol was the S crossed by two vertical bars. That symbol is called a “cifrão”.

thats kinda cool

cOoOooOLLL!!.. learning’s real fun.. *^_^*

Wow! This is an eye-opener. Thanks, dictionary.com for these extras

I love the ampersand, I think I’ll change my name to &. I can pronounce my name as “Ampy”. My last name can be a reverse ampersand. It will look sort of like a scribed S.

wowwwwwwww i didn’t know that!!!!!!!!!!

Rick, I think the letter W looking like two Vs instead of Us is at least partly due to computing – I’d imagine it looks smoother that way as a text character. However, in old writing long before computing or even typewriting there are no doubt similar, “pointy” Ws, though that could be a matter of calligraphy.

This is my first time seeing the community at dictionary.com and I’m genuinely shocked at the writing ability of the those commenting. Surely a literary website would be the best example of it on the internet?

If ampersand had been a character in the alphabet, what sound did it denote? What words was it ever part of?

I love learning sinple things like this!

Amp-
Please do! Ampersand is so cool! But I keep forgetting the name…

I agree with Dee! Where did the ampersand fit in with the rest of the alphabet?

where is the ampersands place in the alphabet?

Sorry Juliet. All I can say is, pay attention in class next time.

@ SalManz

After defending Dictionary.com for their research, I feel badly for putting down your unnamed etymology book. I feel strongly though, that they were merely reporting the usages which people claimed, but could not prove, as valid.

Firstly, book or no book, the horse goes firmly in front of the cart. The word/symbol, ampersand, existed long before the birth of Ampere.
Secondly, Ampere was a Frenchman who had no “and”, he had an “et” in the French language which he used.
Thirdly, other than two references here, I can find no historical citation for either his heavy use of the symbol or any of his contemporaries using the term.

This appears to be a case of people trying to make sense of an esoteric item which they didn’t really understand. The new British term “chav” is not an acronym meaning Council Housed And Violent. It’s merely a term used by Romanian immigrants, meaning “young man.” The brassiere was not invented by a German guy named Otto Titslinger. I wait to be corrected by German-speaking scholars, but my research indicates that the name Titslinger does not and can not exist in German. Even if it did, by German rules of language, it would be spelled Titzlinger, it would be pronounced Titz-linger, and it would not have the Beevis and Butthead connotation so often applied.

Grammer Girl you gave languagecommand a lesson, she might start being a little more humble from now on, and you reinforced my knowledge of the use of may and might. Killed two birds with one stone

A couple months ago I took my 14-year old nephew out for his first-ever round of golf. On the 6th hole he found a ball and I asked what brand it was. He looked at it and as he handed it to me with an outstretched arm, said, “Titend” in a very questioning tone. I responded by saying that there is no ball or brand called “Titend”. I looked at the ball myself to see the most popular name on a golf ball today, “Titleist”.

When I asked, “Where did you get Titend”, he replied, “I was just guessing . They don’t teach cursive in school anymore.”

I found myself STUNNED and deeply saddened for my recent 8th grade graduate nephew – - though no fault of his own.

This is awesome. This is how I’m going to say the alphabet when possible.

Holy macadamia nuts, I didn’t know that.

it is not AMPERESAND. AMPERE’S AND is what is from Andre Ampere bec. he was using it in some of his works, that’s just the pop connotation in math/physics.

it is AMPERSAND, that is the name, that it got from “and per se and”

@KYLE — hey, funny thoug.. u made my day! haha

What about the @ symbol and the exclamation point (!)? I understand their meaning, but pray tell, from whence didst they originate?

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what an interesting tale

why are some punctuation marks divided?

?, ;, :, !,

Also, what is the history of “%”?

that didnt make any sense to me

[...] Snapple cap was discovered while digging through dictionary.com Rate this: Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry [...]

OMG SO AWESUUMMMMMMM!!!1111!11!1

LOLOL OMG KEWL IM GONNA USE THIS TOMORROW OMG OMG OMG SO KAWAII ~DESU!!!1! !!1 !1!!

So, this does sound believable, but can you give us your references for this etymology? I hate to take new and interesting facts as truth without knowing the source. It because of this that we have fake etymologies or “popular” etymologies for so many words and phrases!

Thanks

[...] via [...]

[...] more: http://hotword.dictionary.com/ampersand/ GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]

“@” is called “arroba” in spanish

When I asked my gran about this letter all she could say was “apple sand, what is that”. I knew what I meant but did not know that this was once part of the alphabet. That is almost as confusing as the supposed 3 Rs.

cool!!!!!!!!!! never new that!!!!!!!!!!!!

ooo wow you people didnt know that you all was surpose to learn that in history but am just say if you all didnt know that then you all belong in a special class for slow people

thats sooo cool. nice to kno that.

lilly you said cool i new knew that i guess you really belong in a special class then lol

Can you help with ow d mths got their names?

I did not know that

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z &

Now i really know my ABC’s next time wont u sing with me (and sing it the right way)

We say the & all the time in the alphabet.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y & Z
sing the alphabet song & you do say it. -_- X D

Do tell the history of all punctuation marks!! It’d be really interesting!
i.e. !, @, #, $, etc.

i like it

lolololololololol I use it like every day!

Ever heard about the interrobang?!

Wow! This is absolutely crazy and weird! LOL!!

:p

whoa! i did not know that, that is cool. lol

Yowzers. I am a hot man, and don’t get me wrong, but I am actually really smart and know my vocal. When I heard this I when so crazy I almost stuck my head in the oven. don’t scare me like that dictionary.com! you need to put out the information in a slow and steady process instead of just putting it out there. I have never been more scared in my life. thanks a lot dictionary.com, Jeez

@ is at

Who knew i sure didn’t I can make my friends look real dumb with this

Wow. Nice to know! Happy Valentines <3 xoxoxoxx

cool lol

I soooooooo agree with Jon.

wow u guys are such nerds….. who cares about etymology … jon are cute

“… x, y ,and z”
it’s still sort of there

COOL BUT I DONT REALLY CARE!!!!!!!!

Thats Awesome!

i agree with mae

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 thats really nice to know so know i can go to my language arts teacher and say you dont know all the letters of the alpabet and shell be like what and ill say yea the symbol & used to be in the alphabet and shell go all crazy and be like what know there cant be something i didnt knowand scream nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cant be wrong then have a mental breakdown,fart then her head will blow up into little bloody pieces and her daughter(that is her moms homeroom.!)will walk up to her look around to see if anyone is looking and the will eat her moms bloody pieces of skull!!!!!

hey daisy and mae….u make sense! and all those people saying it’s Dolce & Gabbana….it is spelled correctly. oh wait.. maybe then it wasnt. never mind bout that. i don feel like erasing this so imma gonna leeve it her.

That is really cool.
…X-Y-Z-&
now i know my ABC’s next time won’t you sing with me.
XD

Seriously! Come to the dark side…we have COOKIES!!!!:)

What does this have to do with the word ‘Mrs.’ ? The links really need fixed… Interesting article anyways…

WOWWWWW! that is sooooooooo cool! and per se and andandandandandandandandandandandandndandandandandanad

wow

u would think that they would write something at least a tad bit more interesting than the 27th letter. its a cool fun fact and all but something more “explosive” would be nice right?;}

huh. who knew? not me! :/

That is so freaking cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow thats cool! bob that is so mean why would you call jon a nerd he has feelings to dont make fun of people you are so rude you would not like omeone to say that to you

So, it goes like this-
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, and &. Awesome.

you cant be serious

# <— this is actually called an "octothorpe". Just thought that everyone might like to know.

a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z and &
now i know the proper alphabet
yay me =)

/\/\ | |_ |< /\/\ /-\ |\|

STRAIGHT A STUDENTS DONT NO THIER ALPHEBET O_O

i just come here for all of these things. and… wow.

cooool

hehe wow…. cool D

Ummm… Ok??? Thats kinda funny

interesting i guess

wow!!! thts so weird yet cool but isnt tht “and” today!!! hmmm

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

They should still have that so i wont be writing “And” all the time or type it i could just write that symbol or “Letter”.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& WHAT?!!!!

azome! i never knew that!

but when would you use it in a sentence back the and what does it mean now if it was in a sentence??? (&)???

This is interesting am loving it…

I just needed to do my homework on this website.Because I am only 9 years old.When I saw this info it was really interesting to learn a new word time to time.

I am defently telling my friends this but they would probably wouldnt believe me… typical lol

Well I guess I just learned somthing new today!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

i hate this site ;p

wow! interesting!

We need an alphabet review team. Otherwise I am not very convinced that the symbol ‘&’ is a letter!

Wow! Scandalous!

Thatz sooooooooo kool! I wonder how that came to be … *Thinks* …I’m stumped … Oh well! Thatz STILL kool!

When we sing the alphabet we still say “&” :
a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y, AND, z, Now I know my abc’s etc…

Eh.

wow this is so interesting now my friends will be even more jealous of me because there was a 27th letter sorry friends that i’m always learning new things (not)

That is interesting and bob is right we do say and in the alphabet so we still use it but I never knew that it was considered an actual letter. WOW!

Haha, That’s a neat fact. Hm, I wonder if we could vote it back into the alphabet?

cool

Wow who new?

????????? interesting lol

that’s very interesting. i never knew that. i just thought it was a symbol on a computer

Lol, wow, so interesting!! :UUU I’ll have to share this with my family XDD

so cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! &&&&&&&&&&&&& Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Emily’s comment; it is exactly how my 3 year daughter Rebekah says it!

“Huh. So “ampersand” is slurred “and per se and”? How long do you think it will be until “LMNOP” becomes one character, “Ellamenopee?” I remember when I first learned the alphabet and I was SO sure that it was only one letter. LOL”
Emily Grae on September 3, 2011 at 2:30 am

hi and i think that is weird

stupid

its ridiculus
f it

Ah whaaaaaaaat? This just blows my mind… it just blows it. I’m used to saying ” A B C” (well you know what I mean) but “X Y Z AND PER SE AND” just blows my mind. That’s it… you can go now … bye.

LAME!

actually thats a abreaveation for the word “and” im 8 and i know that

the word “and” + the abreaveation for and “&” both = and.
NO DUH!

hi every one , can i chatting with you???????????

WHAT? THAT IS VERY SURPRISING! It should still be a letter though.

That is soo interesting i never knew that there was 27 letters that is amazing

OMG THAT IS SO OMG LOL!

omg!
i nvr knew tht!

mkenna,
You suck, we are not nerds. we are just somehow smarter than your little brain can handle.
Wow, never knew ampersand was so complicated. Cool.

BTW, Matt, i bet you don’t even understand WTH this whole article was talking about. Your attempt at pretending to think its lame when you have no idea what this is about is LAME.

That’s great. As a student of translation, I have learnt another thing today. Thank you, the team.

thats cool but i already knew about this! (: i guess im just to smart!

thats cool but i already knew that.. soo yea! i guess im just to smart!

sorry i put it twice.. hey know whos the blonde no effense to the blondes it is just a fake joke (:

ok maybe 3 times..

I wonder why we don’t have that in the alphabet anymore.

@ Jon on September 2, 2011 at 2:09 pm

I agree they should do that letter. It would be cool to learn why they do that with “ae”

27 alphebet well that is funny sooooooooooooooooooooooooo funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fun fact: Both Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian have 29 letters in their alphabet and not 26; the three last letters are Æ, Ø, and Å (Å, Ä, Ö in Swedish).

The sound for Æ is pretty much the same sound you’ll find in the name AL (æ:l), the Ø sounds kind of like the first sound in the word URGE (ø:rdgj), and Å is kind of like the first sound of the word ALL with an NY accent:) (å:ll). However, the sounds do variate within the three scandinavian languages, different accents, and different placements in words.

wow.i didn’t know.that is some good yet shocking evidence.thanks whoever posted this.

I did not know that :”&” was a letter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

He accidentally misspelled a designer’s name, not a word from the dictionary. Calm down.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Why is it that strange? Who posted this up?

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW so cool

mmmmm i new that LET ME GUESS NOT

Wouldn’t it be X Y & Z it makes more sense

awesome totally didnt know that wow

cool..

This doesn’t make any sense. I’m a kid you know!!!

bnvb

soooooooooooooooooo hows life?????????????????????????????????

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Cool thats so interesting to know.

I already new that just not it in the alfabet

cool info

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

what ????????????????/thats a weird word

I actually did know that! Funny things I learn from my college textbooks years later. Not too long though, lol I’m so old.

If Your Smart Find The * &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&*

weird, but cool

lolwut?

[...] language.  Unfortunately, that’s a lie, what actually gave me the idea for this topic was this article from Dictionary.com.  For those of you too lazy to go read it (or those who expect me to do some [...]

so u pronounce it like and?

Why is the “&” regarded as a symbol nowadays

the “&” sign looks like someone scooting there butt across the ground. lmfao hahaha (;
….&

That is very interesting.

nice fact to know I dont know about it.

funny fact….especiallty the name hahahahaha… would love more of such

should spam my friends wit this XDD
PER SAY AND!
but nowadays we say
… X, Y, AND [,] Z

ambersand

[...] Link Ampersand Was Removed from the Alphabet [...]

haha ya & was in the alphabet? that would be weird…

whe my teacher told me to say the alphabet when i was at the end i said “also the secret word aaaaaaaand!”

deer

who knew tht writing on here would actually be so popular hmmmm thts kinda lame….. :/

What is gonna make me belive that! Oh yea, by the way my uncle is Kobe Bryant.

isn’t the ae in encyclopædia and the oe in fœtor French

I am going to tell all my friends and family about the ampersand i am happy that i know this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& So long folks luv yall

I am going to tell all my friends and family about the ampersand i am happy that i know this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&So long folks luv yall

I never knew this. Know I know why I sometimes felt like something was missing in the alphabet.

I never knew this. Know I know why I felt like something was missing in the alphabet!

“W” is a vowel in the word “Window”.

(otherwise it would be pronounced “Win-dah”. Come to think of it, in New Hampshire or Boston…)

so cool i never thought & was a twenty seventh letter of the alphabet that is really cool although how long ago did they delete that from the alphabet but the strange thing is why did they delete & i mean people use it all the time then just one day just forget it and drop it fron the A-B-C’s

Alredwashere, just please, get a life. No one cares what you think about it? All the rest of us think it’s really cool. So, if it was so “ridiculous and stupid” why did you even bother to finish it? So, please just press that little “x” in the corner. Oh, wait your brain is too small to complete such a task, I’m sorry. Now, BYE.

Anyone know what “Emancipation” means?

it means shut up!!!!!! NERD

Very rude, Bob!

that cool
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY&Z…… HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAhahahahahahah lol my name is ashley im trey songz daughter watch look me up on google.com
ashleydabest1999 and youll c videos of me on youtube pretty kool huh.. because usually famous ppl dnt post things up on the internet but i want too… but anyways im tremaine neversons daughter my name is ashley neverson..:}

wow! never knew that & used to be part of the alphabet.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z &

cool & wow!hee hee.

ONE DIRECTION ONE DIRECTION ONE DIRECTION ONE DIRECTION

cccccccccccccccccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

woww.. i never knew that.. it would have been confusing indeed, W, X, Y, Z and &…

what is a Wii?

what is a gba

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

that is sooooo not amazing LOL!!!!!

that was worth FINDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! awesome! !
‘

Whoooaaa! Never knew that.

et, also comes from french… it also means and. Funny how languages all kind of link together in history.

wow long but cool =) =)

wow i dont have a face book but this is the next best thing to it ik im a weirdo <3

Jon is a super nerd. 27 letters thats different

WOW AMMUSING I NEVER KNEW THAT!!

that is sooo cool i use that symbol all of the time!!!!&&&&&&&&&:)

jon is not a super nerd

Boring………………
I fell asleep halfway through.

that is awsome i use that symbol or another words “per se” lol

wow that is amazing! didn’t know that! I wish that was still a part of the alphabet today that would be so COOL I wonder what were the the other ‘symbols’ of the alphabet were I reckon they would be aesome to learn about too!!

I never knew that! That is so cool!

LOOOL HAHA I ACTUALLY guess that, no lies!! im so pro

this is something to know !!!

wow REALLY interesting! but i bet no one except those who wanna write a comment will actually see this comment

wait what does ! and # and % and ^ and * and () and ~”;:,./?-_\|{}[] come from??? I guess we will never know… D:

the way i say the abc is: abcdefg(pause)hijklmnop(pause)qrstuv(pause)wxyANDz… so if & was re implemented it should be: wxy&z…

COOL!
(\__/)
(=^.^=)
(“)_(“)

pretty beastly

I would like to learn about a German letter that looks like “ß”.
It stands for double s.

That’s so cool, my geeky loins are quivering.

we still say it when we sing our abc’s abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy and z now i know my abc’s next time won’t you sing with me

BURTRRtggggggggggggggggggg

This is so interesting..
I’m learning something new everyday! ^^

It gained popular use as graphic element during the 1920s and 30s, thanks to the signwriters of that period. It also should never be used in place of the word “and” in normal text. See: http://www.signtech-rta.com/rr/?p=15

Quite intersting!

Very interesting article! Absolutely fascinating. As for another topic, I wouldn’t mind hearing more about the interrobang.

As an aside, I’m curious to know what would be the numerological value of &. Since it’s said to be originated from a combination of e and t, would it be appropriate to add the values of e and t. Chiero says e = 5 and t = 4, so should & = 9?

that is an interesting fact i never knew that

yall are i been knew that and in only 14 but thats in my name

awesome

sweet

Yeah

wow….. its really amazing

Awesome Information….Millions of People are still unaware of it….Nice and informative sharing of knowledge!

and here i was living knowing there has always been only 26 existing letters in the alphabet!

did not know! (: thanks !

that is soooooooo cool i go with Jon & Emily. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&.soooooooooooo coooooooooool.

a,b,c,d,e,fg,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,&,LOL.SO COOL.

&c can stand in for etc. because etc. is short for the latin et cetera which means and others/other things. Et is just latin for and, so the ampersand can be used in its stead. It can’t replace random e-t combinations.

wow! i never knew this

Wow!! That’s so cool, I never knew that there once was a 27th letter in the alphabet! And not only was there a 27th letter but it was one that I had known my whole life!!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&!

Nice!!

CHUCK NORRIS AGREES AS HE SWIMS THROUGH LAND.

what about a symbol for ‘the’ ? i made one. here’s a link to my site: https://sites.google.com/site/finalstandhomepage/home/feace-stuff

Very interesting. I learned something knew everyday!

Kelly is right!

Didn’t see Jon’s post- but I love this stuff too- very interesting .

God bless~~

Love you lily!xoxo

OMG! That is so crazy!!!!!!!!!
P.S. U forgot DERF!

jkjk

im bored

that is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo coooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!

anything else like this

me bored! very bored

:$

taylee spelled abreviation wrong but i still agree

So cool! I LOVE words. I want to be a wordsmith when I grow up.

There are many things that may possibly have an effect on the speed perhaps the right way unhurried the head of hair increased.
Here, I point out an obvious strategy to offer some
assistance increase your tresses dense, more durable and as a result much more healthy producing use of herbal measures.

Thats nuts going to tell my parents right now

im dave

Lets remind ourselves of what an alphabet is: definition3. any such system for representing the sounds of a language. (Dictionary.com).

Ampersand , &, is not representing a sound, but is a short hand version of “Latin word et which means “and” they linked the e and t.” then it does not belong to an alphabet.

WOW!!!

I am sooooooooooooooooo surprised!

OSMOSIS

Whoa.

That is sooooooo bizzare! strange, too! l;

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I NEVER KNEW THIS NICE TO KNOW NOW I CAN BRAG TO ME FRIENDS ABOUT THIS YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for knolwdge

Do you guys at dictionary.com know why some old documents (I believe the Declaration of Independence was one) has some “S”s replaces by an “F”?

ha!!
lol!!
I can’t believe it!!
seriously?!
&?
&?!

There’s a symbol that combines the question mark and the exclamation point. It’s called the interrobang.

This would’ve messed us up if Sesame Street tried to en-corporate this into their songs over the years! Very cool though!

wooooww it’s great to know such simple things that not everybody knows.

wow …..! its really an interesting thing to know..
thanks for a new information

awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I knew this

wow……… amazing

wow

Didn’t know that…so that’s TOTALLY AAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I completely agree with Zed. Can’t believe everybody is just lapping this up without a thought. The etymology is interesting but calling the ampersand a letter is lazy and wrong.

Zed on May 14, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Lets remind ourselves of what an alphabet is: definition3. any such system for representing the sounds of a language. (Dictionary.com).

Ampersand , &, is not representing a sound, but is a short hand version of “Latin word et which means “and” they linked the e and t.” then it does not belong to an alphabet.

Wow man! That’s awesome!

johnson & johnson…………..isnt that some sort of law firm?

That’s AWESOME!!! I wonder where it would be in the alphabet!!??
@}–;–’—

Interesting

Ya and the symble @ is on the number 2, and & is on number 7.
27!

May I say some thing? I read all of these comments,some are quite rude and about the ‘and per se and’ that I get but where would this letter be? 1st or last?

good grief!!!!!!

wierd! WEIRD! tnk goodess it was removed from the alphabeth! i wonder how i would have bit my mouth to pronouce that when i was a child

cool & exiting. Cause knowledge is power!

i could have sworn “&” was the shorter way of writing “and ” i geuss we learn something new everyday.

alway wanted to know whats is the name for this sign. >>> #

Shouldn’t that be: Which character was removed from the alphabet…?

Where does dictionary.com get all of this information? After reading this, I tried to find out more online (like why it was taken off), and I couldn’t find anything!

Yet again, agree with John but this is cool also!Never noe abt this!

i want a taco
i cannot have one right now

I would like to know about the ~ sign. I use it all the time when I’m happy, but to be honest, I’m not quitre certain of its purpose. Either that, or I would like to know what ` is for, and what seperates it from its akin cousin ‘.

Another interesting question, would be the purpose behind symbols such as {} and [] and what makes them different from (). I am also interested in the history of | and now the letter I, but the little line which shares a key with the \.

omg sooooooooo coool that is pretty knifty

Why not trying to say this to everyone:
Alpha Kenny Body
or even better:
You’re Sofa King Gay

“Very cool – thanks. I had an international technology instructor ask me once about the symbol “@”. We refer to it as the “at” symbol, but he would ask his students if they knew of another name for it. One of his northern European students referred to it as a “schnabel A”, with the “schnabel” being the word for what an elephant has on its face – its trunck. Wonder if there is another name for the “@” symbol.”

In Czech we call it “zavináč”. It means rollmop

I love it, “and per se and”. Learning is so wonderful.

lol

Well you learn something new every day! Another factoid for my next quiz night!!!

wwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

coolios

where does & go in the abc song?

Finding that out was so freakin AMAZIIIING!!!
wow …. just unbelievable

wooooaaa………..its..rely coooool 2 knw such @m@zing facts…….
per se…….lol!!!!

I wud luv 2 knw……….frm wer……..’@’ ………….’#'……………….. ‘=’ n other symbols originated……..!!!!!!!!!!!!!
……………..odrwise d info bout……’&’…………ws f@b….. ….. :-O
gnna share it wid ma frndzz…… lol!!!!!!!
thnxx dictionary.com ………….

Hello, awesome website. All of the topics you posted on were very interesting. I tried to add in your RSS feed to my news reader and it a couple of.
1

Very interesting….Well done. Just one catch… the mouse rollover for the pix, the word ampersand needs edited… ; ) No worries. If you are hiring an editor, let me know! Serious, well done.

Best regards,

LJ

… where’d my “ly” go in Seriously? You might have had the same issue… LOL!

LJ

I never knew that! but… how come?

neat!!! ty dictionary.com!! lol

I genuinely enjoyed reading about this ‘and per se and’ now I can boast about my knowledge and how so totally clever I am! ;P

LAST! no little person can sneak up behind me again!

I believe it could still be there which is clearly evident in the singing of the ABC’s…
W, X, Y & Z. I vote we count it!

So, does this hold up in court?? I’m being sued by a company with “and” in its name, but court papers have “&” in name??????????? Anyone???

hi this is so kwl lol <3 sxxxx!!! ! !!! ! ! etrodtkdzgjdzr

So ampersand was once in the alphabet? Oooh im going to sing the alphabet diff from everyone else now.

whooo thats so cool its so cool its really was really different backthan cool
<3

ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?ampersand?

Unknown on April 7, 2012 at 8:08 am

Anyone know what “Emancipation” means?

@ unknown: emancipation is the act of freeing something or someone, emancipating them. It comes from the Latin noun emancipationem.
For example, the Emancipation Declaration signed by President Abraham Lincoln stated that the US civil war was the war to free or “emancipate” the African-American slaves.

Amadudin on June 1, 2012 at 10:56 am

alway wanted to know whats is the name for this sign. >>> #

@Amadudin: # I believe this is called an octothorpe

lolz i use that word everday except i dont say ampersand i do & rofl i didnt even know what it was called! hahahahhaha 8)

oh and tim you left this post on my birthday! cool! 8)
lol.
rofl!
lolz
lmao
and on and on and on……
C’ya Guys! I’m AWESOME! 8) 8D

to me i think tht waz retarded and alysha wat ever ur name is you and jon are retarded u to should go out ill call the retard couple ur wedding present a leather helmet and a drule cup lol.

wow. that’s so cool!

Aww!! This is cool… Like me..

Why do they teach children X, Y, Z, AND now I know my A, B,C,’s next time won’t you sing with me?

I take it there are a lot of youngsters who replied to this. A 50s kid would know this unless the wool blanket of the 70s was pulled over their eyes prematurely. Schools don’t take the time to teach kids to write cursively as they did when I was a lad. Penmanship was something teachers were pretty strict about in elementary school as it was one of the tools that got you through the rest of your education. There were no computers or word processors and not every family had a typewriter lying about. Homework was handwritten no matter the subject and your grades could suffer if illegible. Multipaged essays were a true test of one’s ability to write. The ampersand was something I learned about early in life and used in my essays. Some teachers were impressed that I knew to use such.
I would like to see a random sampling of handwritten essays from students in today’s high schools/colleges.

Hi! It Hatsune Miku! Ampersand is very unusual and very ironic. But good to know. ^_^

Do V, W, X and Y have a derivative relationship?

WHOAman……no idea

I would like to know the Origen of the @ symbol. In English we refer to it as “at” but in Spanish it is known as arroba. What is the correct English term for this simbol?

THANK YOU !

Oh…. that’s why we say “Y and Z”… or “Y & Z”

This is very interesting! Never heard before!

‘Awww—Come–on–”

1. When, did the Romans-themselves of the 1st century write in minuscule font–? They wrote in majuscule… “ET”

2. Uncial (rounded uppercase “ƐƬ ƸƮ”) came along in the 3rd, century…

3. And none of your examples, and, none of the available fonts on a major word-processing-app, show anything nearly, like, the origin of the “&”-form (so it doesn’t show: but must be told) that it was like an uncial-E-crossed… like the way we write ‘Rx’ as R-crossed (Latin for R[eceive] or R[emedy])…

4. And, I prefer the E-vertical-slash which itself is probably based on the abbreviation for ET, E-apostrophe, (apostrophe indicates letters skipped)… like the C-slash ₵¢₡ for C[ents], and the S-slash $ for dollars (but that’s another story, probably for promoting the S[ilver-dollar])…

5. And– we finally note, that, the Wingding-& happens to be particularly popular these days (beginning Friday)  especially in gold… GO $!

You should write about the relationship between 8 and the infinity symbol.

Cool but what are the origins of : !@#$^*,?/>. and~ ?

is that why we sometimes sing “w, x, y, AND, z” so it sound better than singing “w, x, y, z, and per se and”

hmm… very interesting :3

Makes sence when kids sing a-b-c…x-y-&-z but didn’t know it used to follow the z rather than precede it.

THATS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i <3 this site

now i can use & with pride.

ok here it is: the @ symbol. WHY is there a circle there?!?!??!!? it drives me crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow… Such letter is a loner…:/

Bwahahahahaha.! Uhmmm ._____. … Hi.! (/.\)

-_______- People And Their Dumb Comments… Smh.

.______________________________. Uhmmm, Hi.! (/.\) c:

Discovery! Wow & Wow!

So ampersand doesn’t seem to have ever been a proper letter, but a word–since it signifies a conjunction, and not a sound for building words, like all the other letters are.

i still sing it like that but i never knew this lol

Wow! A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Y, Z, &

Cool did not know that…

Spelled my name wrong..

I already knew that, you all are stupid if you didn’t know that. Clearly you all went to public school ,because you would have known this if you all would have gone to private school like me they teach you everything there. The only reason I am on the site because my sister did not know what she was doing,and typed in dicktionary and it brought her here. that is how she spelled it not me. Obviously I know the alphabet and how to spell.Thank you for spending time reading my post. That just goes to show that any of you have lives .Bye!

[...] the ampersand symbol lost its place in the alphabet, it will never lose its place in our hearts. If you’re also a fan of the elegant symbol, you [...]

awesome, I did not know that.

AWSOME!!

OMG ( GASP ) I never knew this! This is sssssssssssssooooooooooooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m like totally going to send this to my friends “&” families! BTW I’m also going to tell them how cool HOTword is! Tee Hee!

In ‘et cetera’ there is an ‘et’ in ‘cetera’, so could it be ‘& c&era”?

This is rachet

I didn’t even know that.

Wow I always thought it was just the short form of and

That’s…weird…

I had NO IDEA that there were any letters DELETED from the alphabet, and I’m supposed to be a SPELLING GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about the hash tag #?

wow i had no idea that & was a letter in the alphabet!!!!!

Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdah! Wow, i’m a little scared. I actually found that INTERESTING. am I crazy?! OMG WTH…lMHO! lololololol!!!!! ^ v ^

I’m gonna ask people who know what an ampersand is to say “and per se and” and see if they come up with ampersand. Thanks for the tongue twister.

keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllllllllll

i did not know that thanks

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t know that! So coooool ”&” weird at the same time. I’m telling my friends ”&” family about that sooooooooooooo cooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[...] “The Hot Word” article from Dictionary.com sprung a few surprises on me. First, that the ampersand was an ancient Latin creation, the cursive amalgam of e and t for “et,” the Latin word for “and.” But it wasn’t named until the 1800s. Seriously. [...]

Cwrth is also a word
So W is a vowel in some cases

Never even crossed my mind that they originally had a 27th letter in the alphabet, amazing.

LOL. Im surprised Poe nevr used it

This is the best thing I’ve ever read.

what is this, * ,called?

What is the origin of the dollar sign ($)?

‘However, it actually comes from a handwritten ‘ps’, an abbreviation for ‘peso’ in old Spanish-American books.’

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/what-is-the-origin-of-the-dollar-sign

I knew that I learened that in Kindergarden

WOW!!!!Amazing!

This is so awesome!

Some people mentioned the ~ line. That (key) is called the tilde key. BUT that line is not the the tilde. This ` is the tilde. (Not to be confused with the apostrophe: ‘ ). I usually say it is a squiggly or wavy line. But MY question is, what are these: { } called. My math teacher called them fancy brackets, but it is clear that is not the name.

what is civil engineering material and concrete tecnology

Fascinating! Thanks for the history of this symbol.

WOW LOL NEVER KNEW THAT!!!

Higlac- i thought “umlaut” was the name for the two dots over a vowel, like ë….if its not, then what is???

wow i never knew that cooool

That is sooooooooooooooooooooo cool and to know that! I had no ideal that “and” was apart of the alphabet ever. I feel smarter than a 5th grader. LOL!!!!!! I can’t to go share with my kids.

LOL.

“X, Y, Z, and and!”

Cool.

I did not know that

that is so cool
&

That’s so weird, considering that we are STILL using that symbol.

WHAT THE HECK !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Daemon
awesome to learn about this its coooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllll

I didn’t know that.. lol

[...] ampersand — now a commonly used symbol –was actually once a letter of the alphabet. Two other extinct letters ? The thorn and the [...]

THAT IS SOOOOO COOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!! I would have never thought of that

This is pretty cool,but to long.

NERDY NUMMIES!!!!!!!!!!!1

Hey, i just noticed something, when you say, “A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,” and so on, until the letters,”X,Y, & Z” DONT YOU SEE?!?!?!? THE WORD AND (&) IS IN IT!!!!!!!!

Why is ‘W’ called ‘double U’ instead of ‘double V’? Clearly it looks like two V’s close together, not U’s. I’ve always wondered about that.

Oh and, samantha monroe, clearly the world is a much brighter place because it has you in it!

thats cool did anyone notice though it looks like a guy dragging his but on the floor & O.o

so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! never knew that!

i’ve been using that symbol and i never knew it was a letter!

eeeeeeeppppppppiiiiiiccccccccc B)

never knew dat. :O

LOL I didn’t know that

Thanks dictionary.com

thats cool

Wow. I never new.

In what position was this “letter” in?

wow
omg

you learn something new everyday.

Coolio! &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

JON REAL NERD(JUST KIDING, U ARE, IF U READ THIS) ~ IS THE COOF, OK? I LIKE THE GUY WHO MADE -COOF-!!!!!!!!!

TOMMOROW IS HALLOWEEN SO GET DRESS UP PEOPLE! LOL YAY LOL YAY LOL

I AGREE WITH MY BROTHER JON A NERD

OK!!!! AMPERSEN AND IS A ??????? LOSER!OK? PLZ LISTIN ][]LOSER LOSER LOSER LOSER IS U

It is so cool how & is the 27th letter of the alphabet because in latin we just learned all about it and the latin word et. I dont know why they got rid of it…..

We also learned what @,etc, and i.e means. The one article where latin actually helps you understand something…

A,B, C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z, &.

Samantha Moo or whatever, I went to private school. You should really check out Bo’s page. Random facts. I am a 6th grader in public school now and happier. So if you would kindly stop making people such as my self feel inferior and unimportant, it would be a widely appreciated gesture.

furthermore miss moo, you seem to have the intelligence of a small abandoned ape with no sense of sight, hearing, or smell, emphasis on smell.

Frankly, I must say you rather smell like one too.

wow .

IMPOSSIBRU! hahahaha cool

Use an ampersand [&] as a conjunctive within clauses (where Latin uses –que) and the conjunctive ‘and’ between clauses (where Latin uses et). Never use ‘and’ within a clause.

As regards distinguishing between these levels of conjunction, English as commonly used is at present syntactically deficient & inferior. However, English is a living language and this can be rectified by awareness & discipline. The ampersand is pronounced ’n’.

Wow! Never knew that! Maybe $,@, and* follow
the same thing LOL

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww:):(

thats so coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

[...] Source [...]

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&!!!!!!!!!!
thats so cool!!!!!!

fascinating! but why dont they use it now????????? wait sorry i know. but sooooooooooooooo coooooooooooooooool

omg

Agree with Jon! xD

And/& this is cool. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

(\__/)
(=^.^=)
(“)_(“)
.

I already knew it was called the ampersand… And I’ve always said “y and z” not “y, z, and,” so I wasn’t really surprised upon finding out it was part of the alphabet at one point.

why does everyone assume it was the last letter? -_- maybe it was before “a” or in the middle or something. and by the way, these guys were right. there’s 2 b’s in the article on dolce & gabbana

And here I thought that I was the only person who randomly looked at stuff like this on the internet…I had no clue that as many people as this were interested in random bits of info.

I think that it is dumb to have 27 letters in the alphabet. 26 is enough. It doesn’t even look like a letter, just a random symbol that someone decided should be a letter. We went from 24 letters, to 26 letters and now people are confusing us with 27 letters. Also, this is something lol my friend showed me. :8(0)!!!!! Old Grandpa!

AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!?

lol that so cool i learnt something 2 day hehehe :0

I just called it the and sign….I never knew there was a 27th letter!

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Fine along with your permission let me to snatch your feed to stay updated with approaching post.
Thank you a million and please continue the gratifying work.

WOW!! THAT IS SO, SO INTERESTING!!

Don’t we still use “and” when we say the alphabet? W X Y and Z

Wow, I do use that “letter” every day

weird:):(:D

OHHHH… so that’s why we say, “Y and Z”… or, “Y & Z”

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& is so awesome!!!! but doesn’t it go “Y & Z”?

————–. that’s spit. is : and D, is : and ), same thing with everything.

SO BYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow i’m flabberasted never would have guessed!!!!!!! :p

random stuff

” Wow Interesting I my self didn’t know that Cool and I Am A Sixth Grader .!

w would be a good one is it two u.s or its own letter and what does it mean and the q. is it related to the g? the x too! and last where do I find the next post about this topic?

Wow, that’s pretty awesome.

[...] post was inspired by a fascinating article on ampersands on Dictionary.com. You’ll have to go read it to see everything that’s so fascinating [...]

OMG i did not know that it is soooooooo insteresting
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!i did not know that

[...] or tweet), but the ampersand has had a long and storied history in English, and was actually frequently included as a 27th letter of the alphabet as recently as the 19th [...]

Jon those are letters in french the combined letters

good

oh dear god .-.

I’d be cool if LMFAO became a letter
I’d be like the band

USA and United States of America
Which one is acronym and which one is antonym?
Help!

thats amazing.& i also wanted to say im from:
puerto rico!!

i wish it still was…….. it would make life much easier. :\

I didn’t know there was a 27th letter of the alphabet.Maybe we can use it in the future.

The letter looks like a “and” sign

[...] How ampersand came from a misunderstanding [...]

[...] there’s ampersand, considered the 27th letter of the English alphabet until about 150 years ago. It’s name comes from its position at the [...]

I recall, in 1949, Mrs. Omadel Reed taught us kindergarteners the alphabet adding “ampersand” at the end. It we never mentioned, however, after I commenced into grade school, consequently I was grown before I knew what the Sam Hill she was talking about.

Okay, we got rid of the ‘&’; now we can start bulldozing ‘x’.

How did this sign @ get started???

(Jon, et al): Characters that are tied together (ae, oe, fi, and so forth) are called “ligatures” (meaning tied together). Many modern electronic fonts have them. Some fonts have tem in separate versions, sometimes called “extended fonts” or “expert fonts.”

Awesome, just awesome…

A very nice read and a great article!

For example, shoes, pants, &c. By the way the & in the picture is butter.

Wow

It’s just awesome.

here comes a new letter!

What’s up colleagues, its wonderful article regarding educationand entirely explained, keep it up all the time.

Wonderful comments with incredible information. Everyone should participate in dialogue like this. I’ve learned so much just reading about the ‘&’. Thanks everyone!

I think that the true engish literature was among the aglo saxons as they created many charcters in our alphabet today such as the letters ‘F’ and ‘U’ – anyway thats what I read.

I agree, BOBBY BLUEBEAR

:0

Etcetera actually is Latin for “and again”. Spelt Et Cetera

I have learn a lot I become intelligent

That’s amazing!!! I never listened before……..

THATS SOOOOOOOOO COOL I DIDNT KNOW THAT WOAH AWESOME

lol i’m the 700th comment

look at the amount of comments! amazing they haven’t blocked it yet…

I could careless about the post…the comments are what’s amazing!!

Can’t wait to see the comments pass 1000!

That was freakin awesome to know I bet u no-one knew that

I didn’t know that either LOL and my teacher was like, OMGYG2BK!

The combination of “oe” or “ae” as in foetus and Caesar are essentially diphthongs pronounced as one sound. They have been bonded, forming a ligature to produce one sound, not two. Some in English once had a dieresis (2 dots) over a vowel when two vowels came together as in the word oogonium, which I thing is a spore. In German they use an umlaut; in French it’s a dierese, and I think it’s a trema in Spanish.

weird that is.

[...] Ltd. (limited), LLC (limited liability company), etc. (et cetera). Some names include and, some an ampersand, and some start with the. What are the [...]