ZDawg@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml · 1 day agoWhat is the most obscure fact you know?message-squaremessage-square44fedilinkarrow-up159arrow-down11
arrow-up158arrow-down1message-squareWhat is the most obscure fact you know?ZDawg@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml · 1 day agomessage-square44fedilink
minus-squareJonnyprophet@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkarrow-up23·23 hours ago& This symbol, the ampersand, used to have equal status with letters of the alphabet and was stuck at the end after Z. That’s how it got its name. People would say “X,Y,Z, and, per se, And”. (And “sort of” an and). Thus, “And per se And” became Ampersand.
minus-squareTempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkarrow-up3·8 hours agoI love the corruption of the saying to give us the name. Reminds me of “Goodbye” being a corruption of “God be with ye”.
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This symbol, the ampersand, used to have equal status with letters of the alphabet and was stuck at the end after Z.
That’s how it got its name. People would say “X,Y,Z, and, per se, And”. (And “sort of” an and). Thus, “And per se And” became Ampersand.
per se means on its own
And in Finnish ”perse” means ass
nice
I love the corruption of the saying to give us the name. Reminds me of “Goodbye” being a corruption of “God be with ye”.