3 ms·
The way I read the article is that the ampersand became a de facto 27th letter, so "and per se and" meant "the letter &", wheres "and" meant "the word and".
by RichieAHB 4y ago
The way I read the article is that the ampersand became a de facto 27th letter, so "and per se and" meant "the letter &", wheres "and" meant "the word and".
- nailer 4y agoYes re 27th letter, hence me writing that we want the word et (also known as ‘and’) not the letter. The author says the opposite in the part I quoted: > The letter I, similarly, would be “I per se I” to differentiate it from the pronoun I We want the word and/et in this case - we are saying 'John and Jane' not 'John (letter et) Jane'. So the author's logic is not consistent. Or I'm missing something. Alternative, more logical explanation (which may be garbage as it is unreferenced from wikipedia): > It was also common practice to add the & sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced as the Latin et or later in English as and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z, and per se and".