Interesting, I've always thought it's & pronounced as Latin `et', which sounds like `at', so &x gives a pointer that "points at" x. Also, the "near on the keyb

Interesting, I've always thought it's & pronounced as Latin `et', which sounds like `at', so &x gives a pointer that "points at" x. Also, the "near on the keyboard" idea doesn't make sense anyway because C was developed on a bit-paired tty33 where the two symbols are not that close to each other.