# Mundane, ampersand
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 5, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846 "2005-04-05T14:58:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/1 "2005-04-05T14:58:54Z")
How come my ampersand is “&”, while the other version of this character, used by various folks here, is different, more stylish?
I tried copying and pasting that other one, but when I pasted it came out the old meat and potatoes &. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/2 "2005-04-05T15:01:04Z")
Shite!!!
My ampersand is &. The copy/paste worked, but NOT until I submitted the OP.
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### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/3 "2005-04-05T15:05:26Z")
I give up!!! My humdrum amperand is sort of like a G-clef. Now, all I can get is the one I’ve been complaining that I can’t get. &&&&&& :smack:
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### Author:  [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/4 "2005-04-05T15:10:34Z")
I believe the source of your conundrum is that the edit box is one font while the text displayed above in the thread itself is a different font. I, too, see a different style of ampersand (&) here in my edit box but have no doubt it will appear exactly as yours when I post this.
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### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/5 "2005-04-05T15:23:06Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#):
>
> I believe the source of your conundrum is that the edit box is one font while the text displayed above in the thread itself is a different font. I, too, see a different style of ampersand (&) here in my edit box but have no doubt it will appear exactly as yours when I post this.
Thank you, **Ponder Stibbons**.
But just to check, Here’s an &.
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### Author:  [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/6 "2005-04-05T15:54:23Z")
**Antiochus** , your ampersand is elegant and retro-stylish. Honest. Your ampersand is nothing to be ashamed about. Really. Anyone who sneers or laughs at your ampersand is merely too immature to realize the pleasure that non-traditional ampersands can give them, if they’d only give them a chance. It’s true. Remember: your ampersand itself is far less important than _what you do with it_.
So be happy with your natural ampersand. After all, God gave it to you, His special child, for a special purpose. One day, you’ll meet the Doper who appreciates you and your ampersand for what you are. And that is how you’ll know you’ve found true happiness.
Or so I’ve heard.
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### Author:  [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/7 "2005-04-05T16:38:24Z")
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/8 "2005-04-05T16:40:19Z")
& Arial
& Book Antiqua
& Century Gothic
& Comic Sans MS
& Courier New
& Garamond
& Lucida Console
& Microsoft Sans Serif
& Palatino Linotype
& System
& Tahoma
& Times New Roman
& Verdana
& Whatever the heck our standard font is. (Book Antiqua or a close cousin?)
(Note that there is a Font drop-down box on the top of the Message response window.)
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/9 "2005-04-05T16:44:48Z")
& Book Antiqua
& Franklin Gothic Medium
& Trebuchet MS
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/10 "2005-04-05T16:57:18Z")
I’d have to say the ampersand is one of the most variable of all punctuation. Since it originated from the Latin _et_, “and,” the earliest ampersands were calligraphic renditions thereof, and then they fused into a wide variety of shapes.
You have your fairly standard 8-shaped curlicue; you have the 8-shape but missing the top right-hand “lobe”; you have your E with a line through it; you have your E with a T-shaped nubbin and swash attached to the lower bar; you have your leaning-back crescent with the line of the e emerging from the centre and shooting upwards, and the bar of the T appended to the rightmost tip of the curve, with no descender.
I do like ampersands.
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### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/11 "2005-04-05T16:59:23Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#):
>
> **Antiochus** , your ampersand is elegant and retro-stylish. Honest. Your ampersand is nothing to be ashamed about. Really. Anyone who sneers or laughs at your ampersand is merely too immature to realize the pleasure that non-traditional ampersands can give them, if they’d only give them a chance. It’s true. Remember: your ampersand itself is far less important than _what you do with it_.
>
> So be happy with your natural ampersand. After all, God gave it to you, His special child, for a special purpose. One day, you’ll meet the Doper who appreciates you and your ampersand for what you are. And that is how you’ll know you’ve found true happiness.
>
> Or so I’ve heard.
MPSIMS OPs, by definition, are supposed to be inviolate. There is no justification in calling attention to my idiocy. Especially when I do it so splendidly on my own. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/12 "2005-04-05T17:10:11Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> I’d have to say the ampersand is one of the most variable of all punctuation. Since it originated from the Latin _et_, “and,” the earliest ampersands were calligraphic renditions thereof, and then they fused into a wide variety of shapes.
And the name itself dates from a time when school children would recite the letters of the alphabet and would finish by saying the letters that were words in themselves; e.g. “I” \*per se \* (in itself) “I”; “a” \*per se \* “a”; “and” _per se_ “and!”
Or so I’m told.
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### Author:  [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/13 "2005-04-05T17:18:17Z")
**Strinka** and **Tomndebb** are merely _enablers_, encouraging you to change that which Fate has delivered unto you. Resist them and any others who suggest even indirectly that your ampersand is not perfectly fine the way it is.
It’s the prevalence in modern books and magazines of the “ideal” ampersand that creates unrealistic expectations (among young people like yourself) about their own punctuation. Remember that in books written only a few decades ago that your own ampersand would be not only preferable but the very standard
of typographical beauty. Nowadays, with technological advances claiming to offer contemporary fashions to literally everyone, temptation can combine with envy to warp the minds of those who want to be accepted more than they want to fulfill their own natural potential. This is the source of most of the discontent, crime, war, pollution and other causes of death in the world today. If you want to know more, please find and read those publications offered by JDT Typesetters, Inc., and free yourself of the crazy dream-world you presently inhabit.
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### Author:  [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/14 "2005-04-05T17:23:45Z")
**Antiochus** , I meant no offense. If I hadn’t typed so slowly without previewing (my fault entirely) I’d never have posted a second time. I thought I was being funny, and trying to convey that your ampersand was fine at the same time, but I’m often wrong when I think that. I apologize.
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### Author:  [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/15 "2005-04-05T17:35:10Z")
> [@Daithi Lacha](#):
>
> And the name itself dates from a time when school children would recite the letters of the alphabet and would finish by saying the letters that were words in themselves; e.g. “I” \*per se \* (in itself) “I”; “a” \*per se \* “a”; “and” _per se_ “and!”
>
> Or so I’m told.
I have heard this too, and if it’s true, I don’t know why the @ symbol isn’t called an “appersat.”
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/16 "2005-04-05T18:19:18Z")
I suppose I could look this up, but I need to conserve my energy to keep my daily post count up.
What, exactly, is the origin of the word ‘ampersand?’
I’ll hang up and listen for the answer.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/17 "2005-04-05T18:20:24Z")
> [@](#):
>
> if it’s true, I don’t know why the @ symbol isn’t called an “appersat.”
Because in the eighteenth century (when the story is supposed to have taken place) ampersand was a common character in publishing, whether novels or newspapers, while the at sign (if had even been invented) was used only in ledgers and on shop signs advertising prices. Therefore the at was not included with the alphabet. (Similar reasons attach to the dollarpersdollar, the percentperspercent, the poundperspound (or octothorpersoctothorpe, if you prefer), the asteriskpersaster, &c.)
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/18 "2005-04-05T18:28:42Z")
[The Word Detective on Ampersand](http://www.word-detective.com/052003.html#ampersand)
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### Author:  [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/19 "2005-04-05T19:36:41Z")
& & &
I forgot there are different fonts available.
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### Author:  [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mundane-ampersand/297846/20 "2005-04-05T20:01:44Z")
Thank you all.