Image created by John Winge
There has been somewhat of a revival, a wild, crazed passion as of late. For what, you ask? Ampersands.
I’m sure that doesn’t strike you as strange after seeing multiple ampersand blogs show up recently. Even the Society of Typographic Aficionados’s Font Aid IV project aims to raise money through a font that is made solely of ampersands. To see what inspired this sensation, let’s take a look back at the origins of this interesting and mysterious shape.
The symbol
The ampersand’s shape has roots that trace back to the Early Roman Empire. The initial example is the ligature ET in capital cursive Roman characters.
Over time, the use of the ET ligature became more frequent. Initially, the ligature was the result of quick handwriting, but it began to flow into an intentional shape. The e formed the left side of the shape while the t would form the lower right hand section. By the time Gutenberg’s press came around in the 15th century, the ligature was being cast as a single character. Since this time, there has been a slew of different interpretations of the ampersand shape. Many of these new ampersands don’t display the traditional form and the e and t is lost.
The Word
The term ampersand stems from Latin schooling in the early 1800’s. It is a distortion of the phrase and per se and. The Latin per se is the derivation of the phrase by itself.
When the alphabet was taught in schools, it was common practice to teach students to use per se after every letter that could be used as a word on its own (such as I and A). The phrase and per se and was also included at the end of the alphabet, and eventually it was slurred into the current pronunciation, ampersand. By the year 1837, it was a commonly used term within the English language.
The etemology is quite interesting to me, as I studied French quite a while back. I only remember bits and pieces of the language. When I was initially studying the symbol, the characters e and t smashed together came up. In French, et translates to and. This translation is the exact same as the Latin, et means and.
Image created by Leo Reynolds
The Use of the Symbol
Ampersands are now included with nearly every font designed. It is common practice to use the symbol while writing (although not considered bad practice to abstain).
In the early 20th century, it was typically only used in business titles. There was a fight against this practice as typographers and typesetters alike believed it to be a useful character. Author and type designer Eric Gill decried this thinking in his 1931 book An Essay For Typography:
The absurd rule that the ampersand should only be used in ‘business titles’ should be rescinded, & there are many other contractions which a sane typography should encourage.
The Blogs
Its quite simple to see: people love writing about and drawing these beautiful, free-flowing symbols. There is an attraction to the curved lines, the deepening and lightening in stroke. The origins of the shape and word are quite fascinating, as well. This subject could be studied to an almost infinite end. If you’re looking to find a list of good ampersand blogs, art, or history, here is one I compiled:
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