4 ms·
Well, by the 19th-century mainly in (British?) English, according to those sources. By then had been abandoned in other European languages. Britannica [0] says
by smcin 4y ago
Well, by the 19th-century mainly in (British?) English, according to those sources. By then had been abandoned in other European languages.
Britannica [0] says:
- invented by Romans c. 1st century BCE as a shorthand for 'et', can be seen from Pompeii
- was [also] prevalent in German manuscripts throughout the 19th century.
- gradually abandoned by most [non-English] languages by the end of the 19th century, with the notable exception of Gaelic, where it's also still used [as an evolution of the rival Tironian symbol].
and [1] has a really interesting illustration by Houston (1957) citing Tschichold (1953), showing the evolution of the ampersand over 2000 years, from Pompeii through 8th-C Merovingian Latin to modern-day.
Latterly got pressganged by our C/C++ brethren.
[0]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/ampersand https://www.britannica.com/topic/ampersand
[1]: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/12/ampersand-2.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/12/ampersand-2.html
- carlmr 4y ago> - was [also] prevalent in German manuscripts throughout the 19th century. It's still common enough in Germany, but mostly used for company names if you combine two names. E.g. Müller & Schmidt. Which is why it's also called the "Kaufmanns Und", the "merchants' and".
- croisillon 4y agothough german companies love to write themselves Müller + Schmidt
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- azepoi 4y agoalso sometimes called "Et commercial" in french, so "commercial and". The official name is esperluette which has a nice and probably similar history as ampersand.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TRiG_Ireland 4y agoThe Tironian et is still preferred in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Here's an example from Ireland: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pay_and_Display_sign_with_Tironian_et_for_Irish_agus.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pay_and_Display_sign... (I don't know about the other Gaelic language, Manx, but I suspect that they prefer the ampersand. Their orthography is more English-like generally.)
- smcin 4y agoYes, hadn't known where it came from until this discussion. Another prominent use in Irish was the old pre-1984 P&T / P⁊Ꞇ (Posts and Telegraphs) logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Posts_and_Telegraphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_Posts_and_Telegra... Image of sign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irish_Post_%26_Telegraphs_P%26T_(Ireland).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irish_Post_%26_Telegraphs... Another old P⁊T anti-vandalism sign: https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/506162445597268179/ https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/506162445597268179/