The German Wikipedia [1] has a slightly different variation than MW and you which makes a lot of sense to me: The letters which were also words were prefixed w

The German Wikipedia [1] has a slightly different variation than MW and you which makes a lot of sense to me: The letters which were also words were prefixed with "per se" (it was not bracketed like MW says "I per se I" - why?). So, when schoolchildren recited the alphabet, they'd say "per se A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, per se I, ...". Now, the "&" was at the time considered the last letter, and it was introduced by "and", as the last item of a list often is ("Peter, Paul and Mary"), thus the schoolchildren would end "... W, X, Y, Z, and per se &." [1] French, similarly, ended in "X, Y, Z, et per lui &." That seems to me a very plausible theory for ampersand and esperluette. Note, however, that the English Wikipedia mirrors the "A per se A" explanation from MW. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et-Zeichen#Englische_und_französische_Bezeichnung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et-Zeichen#Englische_und_franz...