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Ampersand

"&" redirects here. For other uses, see& (disambiguation).
This article is about the symbol. For other uses, seeAmpersand (disambiguation).
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Theampersand,also known as theand sign,is thelogogram&,representing theconjunction"and". It originated as aligatureof the letters of the wordet(Latinfor "and" ).[1]

Ampersand
&
﹠, ⅋, ＆, 🙰, 🙱, 🙲, 🙳, 🙴, 🙵
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeLogographic
andIdeographic
Language of originLatin language
Sound valuesnone
InUnicodeU+0026
Lexicographic position(27)
History
Development
𐌄𐌕
Time periodc. 100 CEto present
Descendants• ⅋
SistersGreek letterϗ(ligature ofκ,αandιsimilarly to &)
Armenian letterև(ligature ofեandւ,pronounced/jɛv/;եւ is theArmenianword for "and" );
Sindhi letter,۽
Transliterationsplus sign,+
Variations﹠, ⅋, ＆, 🙰, 🙱, 🙲, 🙳, 🙴, 🙵
Other
Associated graphs&C (etC)
Writing directionLeft-to-Right
This article containsphonetic transcriptionsin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.For the distinction between[ ],/ /and ⟨⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Etymology

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Ampersand:the sign&;the name being acorruptionof 'andper se= and'; i.e. '&by itself = and'. The sign derives from the scribes'ligaturefor theLatin:et;in certain italic versions, the letterseandtare clearly distinguishable.

— Geoffrey Glaister,Glossary of the Book[2]

Traditionally in English, when spelling aloud, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ( "A", "I", and "O") was referred to by theLatinexpressionper se('by itself'), as in "per seA "or" Aper seA ".[3][4][5]The character &, when used by itself as opposed to more extended forms such as&c.,was similarly referred to as "andper seand ".[6][7]This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand", and the term had entered common English usage by 1837.[4][8][9]

It has beenfalsely claimedthatAndré-Marie Ampèreused the symbol in his widely read publications and that people began calling the new shape "Ampère's and".[10]

History

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  • Evolution of the ampersand.[11]Figures 1 to 6
  • The modern ampersand is virtually identical to that of the Carolingian minuscule. The italic ampersand, to the right, is originally a lateret-ligature
  • Etligature inInsular script
  • Example of ampersand based on a crossed epsilon, as might be handwritten
  • Capital lettersampersand on a coin of 1 Makuta of 1814,Portuguese Angola.

The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century AD and the oldRoman cursive,in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form aligature(Evolution of the ampersand – figure 1). In the later and more flowing New Roman Cursive, ligatures of all kinds were extremely common; figures 2 and 3 from the middle of 4th century are examples of how the et-ligature could look in this script. During the later development of the Latin script leading up toCarolingian minuscule(9th century) the use of ligatures in general diminished. The et-ligature, however, continued to be used and gradually became more stylized and less revealing of its origin (figures 4–6).[11]

The modernitalic typeampersand is a kind of "et"ligature that goes back to the cursive scripts developed during theRenaissance.After the advent ofprintingin Europe in 1455, printers made extensive use of both the italic and Roman ampersands. Since the ampersand's roots go back to Roman times, many languages that use a variation of theLatin alphabetmake use of it.

The ampersand often appeared as a character at the end of the Latin alphabet, as for example inByrhtferð'slist of letters from 1011.[12]Similarly,&was regarded as the 27th letter of theEnglish alphabet,as taught to children in the US and elsewhere. An example may be seen in M. B. Moore's 1863 bookThe Dixie Primer, for the Little Folks.[13]In her 1859 novelAdam Bede,George Eliotrefers to this when she makes Jacob Storey say: "He thought it [Z] had only been put to finish off th' alphabet like; though ampusand would ha' done as well, for what he could see."[14]The popular nursery rhymeApple Pie ABCfinishes with the lines "X, Y, Z, and ampersand, All wished for a piece in hand".

Similar characters

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Bilingual Irish street sign, with parallelagusand ampersand.

InIrishandScottish Gaelic,the character⁊(U+204A⁊TIRONIAN SIGN ET) is used in place of the ampersand. This character is a survival ofTironian notes,amedievalshorthandsystem. This character is known as the Tironian Et in English, theagusin Irish, and theagusanin Scottish Gaelic.

Thelogical conjunctionsymbol,∧,is often pronounced "and," but is not related to the ampersand.

Writing the ampersand

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In everydayhandwriting,the ampersand is sometimes simplified in design as a large lowercaseepsilonƐor a reversed numeral3,superimposed by a vertical line.[15]The ampersand is also sometimes shown as an epsilon with a vertical line above and below it or a dot above and below it.[15]

Theplus sign+(itself based on an et-ligature[16]) is often informally used in place of an ampersand, sometimes with an added loop and resemblingɬ.[citation needed]Other times it is a single stroke with a diagonal line connecting the bottom to the left side. This was a version of shorthand for ampersand, and the stroke economy of this version provided ease of writing for workers while also assuring the character was distinct from other numeric or alphabetic symbols.

  • An ampersand written with a vertical stroke[15]
  • An ampersand written with the vertical stroke merged into the edges[15]
  • A handwrittenplus signused, like the ampersand, to mean "and"

Usage

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Ampersands are commonly seen in business names formed from a partnership of two or more people, such asJohnson & Johnson,Dolce & Gabbana,Marks & Spencer,andTiffany & Co.,as well as some abbreviations containing the wordand,such asAT&T(American Telephone and Telegraph),A&P(supermarkets),P&O(originally "Peninsular and Oriental", shipping and logistics company),R&D(research and development),D&B(drum and bass),D&D(Dungeons & Dragons),R&B(rhythm and blues),B&B(bed and breakfast), andP&L(profit and loss).[17][18]

Infilmcredits for stories,screenplays,etc.,&indicates a closer collaboration thanand.The ampersand is used by theWriters Guild of Americato denote two writers collaborating on a specific script, rather than one writer rewriting another's work. In screenplays, two authors joined with&collaborated on the script, while two authors joined withandworked on the script at different times and may not have consulted each other at all.[19][20]In the latter case, they both contributed enough significant material to the screenplay to receive credit but did not work together. As a result, both & andandmay appear in the same credit, as appropriate to how the writing proceeded.

InAPA style,the ampersand is used when citing sources in text such as (Jones & Jones, 2005). In the list of references, an ampersand precedes the last author's name when there is more than one author.[21](This does not apply toMLA style,which calls for the "and" to be spelled.[22])

The phraseet cetera( "and the rest" ), usually written asetc.can be abbreviated&c.representing the combinationet+c(etera).

The ampersand can be used to indicate that the "and" in a listed item is a part of the item's name and not a separator (e.g. "Rock, pop, rhythm & blues and hip hop" ).[citation needed]

The ampersand may still be used as an abbreviation for "and" in informal writing regardless of how "and" is used.

Computing

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Encoding and display

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ThecharacterinUnicodeisU+0026&AMPERSAND(&, &); this is inherited from the same value inASCII.

Apart from this, Unicode also has the following variants:

  • U+FE60﹠SMALL AMPERSAND(fullwidth CJK ideograph for East Asian typography)
  • U+FF06＆FULLWIDTH AMPERSAND(in blockHalfwidth and Fullwidth Forms)
  • U+214B⅋TURNED AMPERSAND(in blockLetterlike Symbols)
  • U+1F670🙰SCRIPT LIGATURE ET ORNAMENT
  • U+1F671🙱HEAVY SCRIPT LIGATURE ET ORNAMENT
  • U+1F672🙲LIGATURE OPEN ET ORNAMENT
  • U+1F673🙳HEAVY LIGATURE OPEN ET ORNAMENT
  • U+1F674🙴HEAVY AMPERSAND ORNAMENT
  • U+1F675🙵SWASH AMPERSAND ORNAMENT

The last six of these are carryovers from theWingdingsfonts, and are meant only for backward compatibility with those fonts.

On theQWERTYkeyboard layout,the ampersand is⇧ Shift+7.It is almost always available on keyboard layouts, sometimes on⇧ Shift+6or⇧ Shift+8.On theAZERTYkeyboard layout,&is an unmodified keystroke, positioned aboveA.

InURLs,the ampersand must be replaced by%26when representing a string character to avoid interpretation as aURL syntax character.

Programming languages

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In the 20th century, following the development offormal logic,the ampersand became a commonly used logical notation for thebinary operatororsentential connectiveAND.This usage was adopted in computing.

Many languages with syntax derived fromC,includingC++,Perl,[23]and more differentiate between:

InC,C++,[24]andGo,[25]a prefix&is a unary operator denoting theaddress in memoryof the argument, e.g.&x, &func, &a[3].

InC++andPHP,unary prefix&before aformal parameterof afunctiondenotespass-by-reference.[26][27]

InPascal,the&as the first character of an identifier prevents the compiler from treating it as a keyword, thusescapingit.

InFortran,the ampersand forces the compiler to treat two lines as one. This is accomplished by placing an ampersand at the end of the first line and at the beginning of the second line.[28]

In many implementations ofALGOL 60the ampersand denotes the tens exponent of a real number.[citation needed]

InCommon Lisp,the ampersand is the prefix for lambda list keywords.[29]

Ampersand is thestring concatenationoperator in manyBASIC dialects,AppleScript,Lingo,HyperTalk,andFileMaker.[citation needed]InAdait applies to all one-dimensional arrays, not just strings.[citation needed]

BASIC-PLUSon theDECPDP-11uses the ampersand as a short form of the verbPRINT.[citation needed]

Applesoft BASICused the ampersand as an internal command, not intended to be used for general programming, that invoked amachine languageprogram in the computer'sROM.[citation needed]

In some versions of BASIC, unary suffix & denotes a variable is of typelong,or 32bitsin length.[citation needed]

The ampersand was occasionally used as a prefix to denote ahexadecimalnumber, such as&FFfor decimal 255, for instance inBBC BASIC.[citation needed](The modern convention is to use "x" as a prefix to denote hexadecimal, thusxFF.) Some other languages, such as theMonitorbuilt into ROM on theCommodore 128,used it to indicateoctalinstead, a convention that spread throughout the Commodore community and is now used in theVICEemulator.[30]

InMySQL,&has dual roles. As well as a logical AND, it serves as the bitwise operator of an intersection between elements.[31]

Dyalog APLuses ampersand similarly toUnix shells,spawning a separategreen threadupon application of a function.[citation needed]

In more recent years, the ampersand has made its way into theHaskellstandard library, representing flippedfunction application:x & fmeans the same thing asf x.[32]

Perluses the ampersand as asigilto refer to subroutines:

  • In Perl 4 and earlier, it was effectively required to call user-defined subroutines[33]
  • In Perl 5, it can still be used to modify the way user-defined subroutines are called[34]
  • InRaku(formerly known as Perl 6), the ampersandsigilis only used when referring to a subroutine as an object, never when calling it[35]

In MASM 80x86 Assembly Language,&is the Substitution Operator, which tells the assembler to replace a macro parameter or text macro name with its actual value.[36]

Ampersand is the name of a reactive programming language, which usesrelation algebrato specifyinformation systems.[37]

Text markup

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InSGML,XML,andHTML,the ampersand is used to introduce anSGML entity,such as (for non-breaking space) orα(for the Greek letter α). The HTML and XML encoding for the ampersand character is the entity&.[38]This can create a problem known asdelimiter collisionwhen converting text into one of these markup languages. For instance, when putting URLs or other material containing ampersands into XML format files such asRSSfiles the & must be replaced with & or they are considered not well formed, and computers will be unable to read the files correctly. SGML derived the use fromIBM Generalized Markup Language,which was one of many IBM-mainframe languages to use the ampersand to signal a text substitution, eventually going back toSystem/360macro assembly language.

In the plainTeXmarkup language,the ampersand is used to marktabstops.The ampersand itself can be applied in TeX with\&.TheComputer Modernfonts replace it with an "E.T." symbol in thecmti#(text italic) fonts, so it can be entered as{\it\&}in running text when using the default (Computer Modern) fonts.[39]

InMicrosoft Windowsmenus, labels, and other captions, the ampersand is used to denote the next letter as a keyboard shortcut (called an "Access key" by Microsoft).[40]For instance setting a button label to"&Print"makes it display asPrint and forAlt+Pto be a shortcut equivalent to pressing that button. A double ampersand is needed in order to display a real ampersand. This convention originated in the first WIN32 api, and is used inWindows Forms,[40](but not WPF, which uses underscore_for this purpose) and is also copied into many other toolkits on multiple operating systems. Sometimes this causes problems similar to other programs that fail to sanitize markup from user input, for instanceNavisiondatabases have trouble if this character is in either "Text" or "Code" fields.

Unix shells

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Some Unix shells use the ampersand as ametacharacter:

Some Unix shells, like thePOSIXstandardshshell, use an ampersand toexecute a process in the backgroundand to duplicatefile descriptors.

  • InBash,the ampersand can separate words, control the command history, duplicate file descriptors, perform logical operations, control jobs, and participate inregular expressions.[41]

Web standards

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The genericURL(Uniform Resource Locator) syntax allows for aquery stringto be appended to a file name in a web address so that additional information can be passed to a script; thequestion mark,or query mark,?,is used to indicate the start of a query string.[42]A query string is usually made up of a number of differentname–value pairs,each separated by the ampersand symbol,&.For example,http://www.example.org/list.php?order=ascending&year=2024.

Typeface samples

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Notes

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  1. ^This is different fromJava,where the&&operator is exclusively used onBooleantypes.

See also

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References

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  1. ^"The Ampersand & More"Archived4 July 2015 at theWayback Machinewith Kory Stamper, part of the "Ask the Editor" video series at Merriam-Webster.com
  2. ^Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall(1960).Glossary of the Book.London:George Allen & Unwin.cited inCaflisch, Max."The ampersand".Adobe Fonts.Adobe Systems.Archived fromthe originalon 13 January 2013.Retrieved23 December2012.
  3. ^Nares, Robert(2011) [first published 1822].A Glossary.Cambridge University Press.p. 1.ISBN9781108035996.Archivedfrom the original on 3 January 2014.Retrieved1 May2013.
  4. ^ab"The ampersand".word-detective.Archived fromthe originalon 8 May 2008.
  5. ^"The Ampersand & More".merriam-webster.Archivedfrom the original on 28 March 2014.Retrieved14 November2012.
  6. ^Ainger, Alfred (2 December 1871). "Amperzand".Notes and Queries.4.8:468.
  7. ^Harper, Douglas R. (20 September 2022)."ampersand".Online Etymology Dictionary.Retrieved5 August2023.
  8. ^"What character was removed from the alphabet but is still used every day?".The Hot Word.Dictionary.com. 2 September 2011.Archivedfrom the original on 27 September 2011.Retrieved4 September2011.
  9. ^"ampersand".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)(subscription required)
  10. ^For examples of this misunderstanding, seeJessie Bedford,Elizabeth Godfrey:English Children in the Olden Time, page 22Archived20 February 2017 at theWayback Machine.Methuen & co, 1907, p. 22; Harry Alfred Long:Personal and Family Names, page 98Archived19 February 2017 at theWayback Machine.Hamilton, Adams & co, 1883.
  11. ^abJan Tschichold:"Formenwandlung der et-Zeichen."
  12. ^Everson, Michael; Sigurðsson, Baldur; Málstöð, Íslensk (7 June 1994)."On the status of the Latin letter þorn and of its sorting order".Evertype.Archivedfrom the original on 24 September 2018.Retrieved16 November2010.
  13. ^"The Dixie Primer, for the Little Folks".Branson, Farrar & Co., Raleigh NC.Archivedfrom the original on 5 May 2011.Retrieved16 November2010.
  14. ^Eliot, George."Chapter XXI".Adam Bede.Archivedfrom the original on 24 September 2015.Retrieved16 November2010– viaProject Gutenberg.
  15. ^abcd"A Visual Guide to the Ampersand (Infographic)".Six Revisions.13 October 2011.Archivedfrom the original on 15 November 2017.Retrieved24 June2017.
  16. ^Cajori, Florian (1928)."Origin and meanings of the signs + and −".A History of Mathematical Notations, Vol. 1.The Open Court Company, Publishers.
  17. ^"Ampersands".ChicagoManualOfStyle.org.Archivedfrom the original on 2 April 2015.Retrieved1 April2015.
  18. ^Fiske, Robert Hartwell (November 2011).Robert Hartwell Fiske's Dictionary of Unendurable English: A Compendium of Mistakes in Grammar, Usage, and Spelling with Commentary on Lexicographers.Simon and Schuster.ISBN9781451651348.Archivedfrom the original on 20 February 2017.Retrieved23 September2016.
  19. ^"Frequently Asked Questions".Writers Guild of America.Archivedfrom the original on 26 January 2022.Retrieved24 September2018.
  20. ^Trottier, David (2010).The Screenwriter's Bible(5th expanded & updated ed.). Silman-James Press. p. 142.ISBN978-1-935247-02-9.
  21. ^"Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide".Owl.english.purdue.edu.Archivedfrom the original on 30 April 2012.Retrieved8 May2012.
  22. ^"Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting and Style Guide".Owl.english.purdue.edu. 9 February 2012.Archivedfrom the original on 12 May 2012.Retrieved8 May2012.
  23. ^"perlop – Perl operators and precedence".Archivedfrom the original on 30 May 2007.Retrieved31 May2007.
  24. ^"Pointers - C++ Tutorials".Archivedfrom the original on 17 June 2021.Retrieved18 June2021.
  25. ^"The Go Programming Language Specification".Archivedfrom the original on 13 May 2021.Retrieved18 June2021.
  26. ^"Pass by reference (C++ only)".www.ibm.com.Archivedfrom the original on 23 October 2021.Retrieved23 October2021.
  27. ^"PHP: Passing by Reference - Manual".www.php.net.Archivedfrom the original on 23 October 2021.Retrieved23 October2021.
  28. ^"Fortran continuation lines".pages.mtu.edu.Archivedfrom the original on 12 September 2017.Retrieved12 September2017.
  29. ^"3.4.1 Ordinary Lambda Lists".Common Lisp – Hyper Spec.Lisp Works.Archivedfrom the original on 11 November 2010.Retrieved30 August2010.
  30. ^"Commodore 128 Machine Language. Part 2".www.atarimagazines.com.Archivedfrom the original on 29 November 2020.Retrieved1 March2021.
  31. ^"MySQL:: MySQL 8.0 Reference Manual:: 12.4 Operators".dev.mysql.com.Archivedfrom the original on 23 October 2021.Retrieved23 October2021.
  32. ^"Data.Function".
  33. ^"PERL – Subroutines".Archivedfrom the original on 21 October 2020.Retrieved29 August2019.
  34. ^"What is the point of the & / ampersand sigil for function refs?".PerlMonks.Archivedfrom the original on 27 September 2007.Retrieved31 May2007.
  35. ^"Exegesis 6".Perl.com.7 July 2003.Archivedfrom the original on 18 August 2007.Retrieved31 May2007.
  36. ^Microsoft MASM Version 6.1 Programmer's Guide
  37. ^"Ampersand".GitHub.Archivedfrom the original on 31 May 2019.Retrieved5 March2019.
  38. ^"HTML Compatibility Guidelines".World Wide Web Consortium.Archivedfrom the original on 14 April 2006.Retrieved19 April2006.
  39. ^Knuth, Donald (1986).The TeXbook.Addison-Wesley. p.428.ISBN0-201-13447-0.
  40. ^abHow to: Create Access Keys for Windows Forms ControlsArchived3 October 2009 at theWayback Machine,from msdn.microsoft.com
  41. ^Fox, Brian; Ramey, Chet (28 September 2006)."UNIX Manual page: bash – GNU Bourne-Again SHell"(manpage).Archivedfrom the original on 2 December 2013.Retrieved20 June2009.
  42. ^""Ampersands in URI attribute values"".Archivedfrom the original on 7 June 2007.Retrieved7 June2007.
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