AMPERSAND

An ampersand (or epershand) “&” is a logogram representing the conjunction word “and”. The character is derived from the Latin word et, meaning “and”, was first written as two distinct letters, but over time the ‘e’ and ‘t’ were combined

The word ampersand is a conflation of the phrase “and per se and”, meaning “and [the symbol which] by itself [is] and”. The Scots and Scottish English name for & is epershand, derived from “et per se and”, with the same meaning.

Until relatively recently the English language was considered to have 27 characters in its alphabet, with the ampersand right after z. The recitation of the alphabet would end in: “X, Y, Z and per se and.” This last phrase was routinely slurred to “ampersand” and the term crept into common English usage by around 1837.

The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century A.D. and the Old Roman cursive, in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form a ligature. In the later and more flowing New Roman Cursive, ligatures of all kinds were extremely common.

The ampsersand is not used within body copy, however it used to be - Gill used it frequently to adjust line length when setting text - but modern usage has it pretty much limited to combining pronouns in titles, company names and credits.

Due to its nature now and how it is used it has turned into a character that allows for such freedom within type design. And often can say an awful lot about a typeface as it is one of the only characters to have so much freedom.

AND PER SE AND, as a brand name for my t-shirts. Brings it back to its history to its very beginning of where its name originated from and when in time it was a character in the alphabet, and, and per se and is how you would say it. Not many people seem to know this, therefore is a way of teaching and letting people know of this. The brand can be taken to be very modern, freshing itself up from its history.