this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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Linguistics (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ampersand is another good example. "&" was considered the last letter of the alphabet for a while. Schoolchildren would recite the alphabet and finish it with the phrase "and, per se and" ("and, meaning and").

The words got mashed together over time and the word "ampersand" was born.

[โ€“] zarkanian 1 points 5 months ago

"Per se" means "in itself", so it's a shorter way of saying "also the word 'and' itself".