The ampersand is perhaps the source of countless wars... no, no, that's not right. The ampersand is a text formatting that often gets berated as the lazy way out. I personally had used the ampersand so much in my theological and online posts that people could immediately tell I wrote the piece. Detractors (typically elitists propped up by other elitists) would often deride me as "unprofessional" for daring to use the ampersand. Maybe you're asking yourself, What is and ampersand? An ampersand is that squiggly little symbol sometimes used to denote the word and. Example: Tom & Jerry

Ampersand Origins

The origin of the ampersand is cloaked in mystery and intrigue... okay, not really. Ampersand literally means and, per se, which became amp-pers-and through verbal distortion. That is, the symbol was often placed by itself at the end of the traditional English alphabet as if it were the lost 27th letter. As people would recite the alphabet and come to the symbol, they would say "and per se and". They would say it so fast, it would sound like ampersand.

Even older roots, have the ampersand in use by the Romans as a ligature of e and t -- the et. An example of ligatures is as follows: (hope you can see them) æ, §,œ (source).

Using the Ampersand

Although I shied away from the ampersand after being badgered for using it so much, I think I will resume my use of it & I plan to start using it now. --thanks