A, a (W3)

• A : The first letter of the English and of many other alphabets. The capital "A" of the alphabets of Middle and Western Europe, as also the small letter ("a"), besides the forms in Italic, black letter, etc., are all descended from the old Latin "A", which was borrowed from the Greek "Alpha", of the same form; and this was made from the first letter ("/") of the Phoenician alphabet, the equivalent of the Hebrew Aleph, and itself from the Egyptian origin. The "Aleph" was a consonant letter, with a guttural breath sound that was not an element of Greek articulation; and the Greeks took it to represent their vowel "Alpha" with the "a" sound, the Phoenician alphabet having no vowel symbols.
• A : The name of the sixth tone in the model major scale (that in C), or the first tone of the minor scale, which is named after it the scale in "A minor". The second string of the violin is tuned to the A in the treble staff. - A sharp (A/) is the name of a musical tone intermediate between A and B. - A flat (A/) is the name of a tone intermediate between A and G.
• A : An adjective, commonly called the indefinite article, and signifying one or any, but less emphatically.
• A : In each; to or for each; as, "twenty leagues a day", "a hundred pounds a year", "a dollar a yard", etc.
• A prep.: In; on; at; by.
• A prep.: In process of; in the act of; into; to; - used with verbal substantives in -ing which begin with a consonant. This is a shortened form of the preposition an (which was used before the vowel sound); as in a hunting, a building, a begging.
• A : Of.
• A : A barbarous corruption of have, of he, and sometimes of it and of they.
• A : An expletive, void of sense, to fill up the meter
• A- : "A", as a prefix to English words, is derived from various sources.
  (1) It frequently signifies "on" or "in" (from "an", a forms of AS. on), denoting a state, as in "afoot", "on foot", "abed", "amiss", "asleep", "aground", "aloft", "away" (AS. "onweg"), and analogically, "ablaze", "atremble", etc.
  (2) AS. of off, from, as in "adown" (AS. ofd/ne off the dun or hill).
  (3) AS. "a-" (Goth. "us-", "ur-", Ger. "er-"), usually giving an intensive force, and sometimes the sense of "away", "on", "back", as in "arise", "abide", "ago".
  (4) Old English "y-" or "i-" (corrupted from the AS. inseparable particle "ge-", cognate with OHG. "ga-", "gi-", Goth. "ga-"), which, as a prefix, made no essential addition to the meaning, as in "aware".
  (5) French "a" (L. ad to), as in "abase", "achieve".
  (6) L. "a", "ab", "abs", "from", as in "avert".
  (7) Greek insep. prefix / without, or privative, not, as in "abyss", "atheist"; akin to E. "un-".

ampersand
und
kaufmännisches UND
Kaufmannsund
kommerzielles UND-Zeichen
logisches UND
Konjunktion
conjunction
and per se and
und und nur und
& (W3)

• = - equals sign
• "" - quotation marks
• () - brackets
• ! - exclamation mark
• : - colon
• ; - semi-colon
• - - dash
• _ - underscore
• @ - the at sign
• , - comma
• / - stroke (slash US)
• . - full stop (period US)

Design History: Get to know your ampersands

by Kaitlyn Ellison

"Ampersand": Adobe Stock-Bilder: 6.305 Ergebnisse

• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" Shapiro, Fred
• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" Michael Quinion
• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" Michael Quinion
• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" Joel S. Berson
• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" ADSGarson O'Toole
• [Ads-l] Antedating of "Ampersand" ADSGarson O'Toole

This is What Happens When You Put Out a Call to Designers For Ampersands

ampersand

ampersand, noun

The symbol "&" itself.

The character in many logics acts as an operator connecting two propositions.

A substitute for the word "and" in any context (though not generally used outside of signs and titles).

• Smith & Sons Hardware
• Style & Substance, A Writer"s Handbook

...
Word History: This word is a contraction of "and per se and", meaning "and by itself and", a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English. An earlier form of it was colloquial "ampussy", which was dropped for obvious reasons, though "ampassy" was tried and failed at about the same time. "&c." was once common way of writing "etc.", an abbreviation for "et" = "and" + "cetera" = "the rest". So, the symbol "&" referred the Latin word "et" = "and", and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs attested in Pompeiian graffiti. All the later Europeans had to do was drop that final "C".
...

"AMPERSAND" (a corruption of the mixed English and Latin phrase, "and per se and", of which there are many dialect forms, as "ampussyand", or "amperseand"), the name of the sign "&", which is a combination of the letters "e", "t", of the Lat. "et" = "and". The sign is now usually called "short and". In oldfashioned primers and nursery books the name and sign were always added at the end of the alphabet.

Ampersand: 1 Work

Ampersand

Dan Beckemeyer's Ampersand Food Groups

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ampersand.

"ampersand" - the "&" symbol, meaning "and" - the word "ampersand" appeared in the English language in around 1835. It is a corrupted (confused) derivation of the term "And per se", which was the original formal name of the "& symbol" in glossaries, alphabets, and official reference works. "Per se" is Latin and meant "by itself", as it still does today. Traditionally all letters were referenced formally in the same way. The letter "A" would have been "A per se", "B" would have been called "B per se", just as the "&" symbol was "And per se". The "ampersand symbol" itself is a combination - originally a ligature (literally a joining) - of the letters "E" and "t", or "E" and "T", being the Latin word "et" meaning "and". The earliest representations of the "ampersand symbol" are found in Roman scriptures dating back nearly 2,000 years. If you inspect various ampersand symbols you'll see the interpretation of the root "ET" or "Et" letters. The symbol has provided font designers more scope for artistic impression than any other character, and ironically while it evolved from hand-written script, few people use it in modern hand-writing, which means that most of us have difficulty in reproducing a good-looking ampersand by hand without having practised first. (See the ampersand exercise ideas.)

The ampersand game (ice-breakers, warm-ups, demonstrations of learning, thinking, and brain-types, knowledge versus skill)

Fancy Ampersand

Using The Best Ampersand Available

Find and Wrap Ampersands

"ampersand"

What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?

"ampersand"

Johnson & Johnson, Barnes & Noble, Dolce & Gabbana: the "ampersand" today is used primarily in business names, but that small character was once the 27th part of the alphabet. Where did it come from though? The origin of its name is almost as bizarre as the name itself.

The shape of the character "&" predates the word "ampersand" by more than 1,500 years. In the first century, Roman scribes wrote in cursive, so when they wrote the Latin word "et" which means "and" they linked the "e" and "t". Over time the combined letters came to signify the word "and" in English as well. Certain versions of the "ampersand", like that in the font Caslon, clearly reveal the origin of the shape.

The word "ampersand" came many years later when "&" was actually part of the English alphabet. In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the "&". It would have been confusing to say "X, Y, Z, and". Rather, the students said, "and per se and". "Per se" means "by itself", so the students were essentially saying, "X, Y, Z, and by itself and". Over time, "and per se and" was slurred together into the word we use today: "ampersand". When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a "mondegreen".

The "ampersand" is also used in an unusual configuration where it appears as "&c" and means "etc." The "ampersand" does double work as the "e" and "t".

The "ampersand" isn’t the only former member of the alphabet. Learn what led to the extinction of the "thorn" and the "wynn".

ampersand (bepaald typografisch teken)

"ampersand" (n.)

1837, contraction of "and per se and", meaning "(the character) '&' by itself is 'and'" (a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English). An earlier form of it was colloquial "ampassy" (1706). The distinction is to avoid confusion with "&" in such formations as "&c.", a once common way of writing "etc." (the "et" in "et cetera" is Latin for "and"). The letters "a", "I", and "o" also formerly (15c.-16c.) were written "a per se", "etc.", especially when standing alone as words.

The symbol is based on the Latin word "et" "and", and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (ligatures) attested in Pompeiian graffiti, and not (as sometimes stated) from the "Tironian Notes", which was a different form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion "Marcus Tullius Tiro", which used a different symbol, something like a reversed capital gamma, to indicate "et". This "Tironian symbol" was maintained by some medieval scribes, including Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with a symbol like a numeral "7" to indicate the word "and".

In old schoolbooks the "ampersand" was printed at the end of the alphabet and thus by 1880s the word "ampersand" had acquired a slang sense of "posterior", "rear end", "hindquarters".

Analytical Grammar

23. November 2016 ·

Today's Lunchbox Lesson: THE AMPERSAND

The origin of the "ampersand" can be traced back to the Latin word "et", meaning "and". The "E" and the "T" that make up this word were occasionally written together to form a ligature (a character consisting of two or more joined letters). Writing the word this way saved the writer time, with one letter flowing seamlessly into the next - a form of cursive or joined up writing.
...

Unicode Character 'AMPERSAND' (U+0026): &

Unicode Character 'SCRIPT LIGATURE ET ORNAMENT' (U+1F670)

Unicode Character 'TURNED AMPERSAND' (U+214B)

Ampersandland

Hier finden Sie eine Sammlung zum "&" in allen Lebenslagen.

Ampersand Blog

The Ampersand
...
First Post

May 9, 2008

So why create a blog about the ampersand? Why not. I plan to explore the variations of my favorite typographic character and see where it takes me. I am a designer, but I am not claiming to be an expert absolute authority on the history and “correct” usage of the "&". I have posted a link to some articles that explore these subjects in great depth.

(E?)(L?) https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/effective-writing/what-about-the-ampersand/

"&" What About the "Ampersand"?

The "ampersand" ("&"): We see it often in our daily communication, which adheres to a modern ethos of speed and brevity as seen in letters, emails, texts, tweets, memos, and notes. The mark is appealing because it helps save character space, it fits right in with other letters’ heights, and many could argue it’s one of English’s better-looking symbols.

With so much presence of the ampersand in contemporary communication, the question now concerns where it fits in formal writing. For writers who want to exchange the mark’s typical blue jeans for dress pants, we’ll explore some guidelines for proper attire.

First, let’s review how the mark & came to be according to Merriam-Webster online and Fowler’s Modern English Usage.

In the late Middle Ages, single letters used as words, such as "A" or "I", were spelled by the phrase "(letter) per se (word)", meaning "(letter) by itself is the word (word)". For the letter/word "I", for example, the phrase was "I per se I", which means "I by itself is the word I".

Merriam-Webster and Fowler’s further agree that over time the "ampersand symbol" evolved into a stylized version of the Latin "et", which means "and". The spelling phrase thus became "& per se and" ("& by itself is the word and"). When said aloud, the phrase was pronounced "and per se and", which spoken English eventually morphed into "ampersand".

Merriam-Webster cites 1795 as the year of the ampersand mark’s first known use in its current form. Varying references estimate "ampersand" was added to English dictionaries in the mid-1800s.

So how are careful, formal writers applying the mark today? The Associated Press Stylebook advises using the ampersand when it is part of a company’s formal name or composition title (e.g., "Barnes & Noble", "AT&T", "Ben & Jerry’s"); otherwise, the ampersand should not replace the word and, except in widely accepted abbreviations such as "B&B" ("bed and breakfast") and "R&B" ("rhythm and blues").
...

(E?)(L?) https://h2g2.com/search?search_type=article_quick_search&searchstring=Ampersand&approved_entries_only_chk=1

Entry search results for: Ampersand

• Ampersands
• Pictures: Languages
• How to Write Entries in GuideML
• GuideML - ENTITY Tag
• h2g2 FAQ: GuideML
• Typesetting for Beginners - What's the Point?
• Ventriloquism
• Smileys
• GuideML Syntax
• Propositional Logic
• Email Addresses in ASCII Code
• An Introduction to the Unix Command Line
• Special Character Codes in GuideML

(E?)(L?) https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A3599346

Ampersands are one of those useful oddities of the English language that one occasionally trips over, especially in older texts. Today it is taken for granted that it is a synonym for the word "and". However, much of the personal life of this fine mark has been lost to the modern reader.

The Shape

The "ampersand" "&" began its life simply enough. It was originally the Latin word "Et", which of course is translated into English as "and". Note carefully the shape of the character "&" and you will see that resembles a cursive version of the word "Et". This is where it all begins. Some lazy or sloppy fellow quickly writes "Et" in his Latin journal or prayerbook and it ends up looking like "&".

Later, in the ampersand's quest for meaning, another fellow gets lazy and instead of calling the "&" by its Latin name - "Et" - he refers to it as "and".

In the meantime, the printing press was invented. Those clever typesetters, always looking for another way to save time decided it was easier to use the two letters of "Et" instead of the three letters of "and". But using even two letters meant that two blocks would have to be set up on the press. One printer then thought it would be an even better idea to create a single character block combining the "E" and the "t", creating "&".

So this is how the "ampersand" gained its shape. The next question is, how exactly did the "ampersand" get its name?

The Name

In America, as in other English-speaking places on the globe, schoolchildren are taught their alphabet by rote. However in 19th-Century America, in addition to the standard 26 letters of the English alphabet, there were also three other characters recited.

The typical recitation would be performed as follows:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z, "A per se A", "I per se I", "& per se &".

The purpose of these odd repetitions of the letters "A" and "I" was to point out to school children that each of these two letters could stand as separate words, per se. The "& per se &" was a reference to the "ampersand" standing as a single character. From this recitation the words "and per se and" were eventually slurred together "andpersand" - and the "ampersand" got its name.

(E?)(L?) http://hotforwords.com/tag/ampersand/

Tag Archives: Ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://www.ibm.com/Search/?q=ampersand

Ergebnisse für “ampersand”

(E?)(L?) https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.1.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r1.ieab600/charseh.htm

...
Ampersands are used in JCL to indicate the beginning of a symbolic parameter (see Using system symbols and JCL symbols). If a parameter contains an ampersand and you do not want the system to interpret the ampersand as a symbolic parameter, code the ampersand as two consecutive ampersands. For example, code:
...

(E?)(L?) https://issuu.com/yafetbisrat/docs/all_information_combined_booklet/18

Ampersand, a history

(E?)(L?) http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/a/ASCII.html

"&" Common: "ampersand"; "amp"; "amper"; "and", "and sign". Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); "andpersand"; "bitand"; background (from sh(1)); "pretzel". [INTERCAL called this 'ampersand'; what could be sillier?]

(E?)(L?) http://jargonf.org/wiki/ampersand

"ampersand": nom masculin. [caractère]. Contraction de "and, per se and". Nom anglais du caractère "&" ("et commercial" ou "perluète" en français).

(E?)(L?) http://www.javascriptsource.com/forms/val-num-or-char.html

Validation (Num. or Chars)

JavaScriptSource Staff Sep 9, 2000

Validates an input field to make sure that only a number or character is entered. If you enter a number or a letter everything you can continue on. But, try entering another value like an exclamation point (!), an ampersand (&), or a dollar sign ($) and see what happens. It even highlights the incorrect entry field for you. Nice!

(E?)(L?) http://www.kith.org/logos/words/upper2/EEtc.html

...
There's one Latin abbreviation which has become so common it's turned into an independent character: I refer, of course, to the lovely and talented "ampersand", "&", which began life as a ligature of "et", Latin for "and". (Even in modern typeset ampersands you can still sort of see the "e" on the left, and the "t" made by the crossing lines on the lower right; some fancy ampersands look more explicitly like an "e with a crossbar on the end"). The word "ampersand" derives from "and per se and", a sort of self-referential definition of the character. (Anyone who tries to tell you that the term comes from an early typesetter named "Amper" ("Amper's and") is either pulling your leg or just mistaken.)

There are a host of other Latin abbreviations that were once widely used in English but which have fallen out of favor except in certain areas of academia: viz. ("videlicet", "namely" it acquired the final "z" through the same fascinating process by which "oz." for "ounce" acquired its "z" (both zs were originally ampersand-like ligatures for "et", even though they indicated the Latin suffix "-que")), "q.v." ("quod vide," "see which"), "ibid." ("ibidem", "same [source] as preceding [footnote]"), "op. cit." ("opere citato", "same work"), "pass." ("passim", "scattered [references] throughout"), "et al." ("et alia", "and others"). (Not to be confused with "inter alia", "among other things".)
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ampersand

...
Video: The Ampersand &
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1795

1795 adzuki bean | ampersand | animus | anisette | anti-British | appraisal | Australian | baronetcy | beach pea | bearing rein | bluebeard | cabbage rose | camisole | centigram | centralize | chasseur | Ching | Chinook | citizenes | scitizenry | consonantal | corrie | deepwater | depot | dry rot | en masse | Estonian | exploitation | gal | gendarmerie | Girondist | groaner | groundfish | half-sole | hawkeyed | incalculable | infundibular | intonate | IOU | irregardless | italicize | kame | koto | laryngeal | lay figure | lemur | liver fluke | mantra | message board | Ming | morgue | mudflat | nonbelligerent | noncooperation | nose out | Orange | otiose | pardner | phosphoresce | placement | pleb | port arms | prime mover | printmaking | pruriency | raffish | richen | roothold | roundsman | self-possessed | senhor | Sextans | Shan | shank's mare | single tax | songsmith | spencer | spontaneous combustion | straightedge | stylist | supersensible | terrorism | three-decker | thrips | triangular number | tricolor | trouvère | try-pot | unconvoyed | undesignated | unisexual | untrammeled | Virginia ham | wholemeal | wove paper | yak

(E?)(L?) http://www.merrycoz.org/voices/bartlett/Amer.xhtml

"AMPERSAND". The character "&", representing the conjunction "and". It is a corruption of "and, per se, and" ("and, by itself, and"). This expression was formerly very common in this country, but seems now to have gone out of use. It may, however, be retained in the interior, where the modern system of education has not reached. Mr. Halliwell, who notices this word in his Archaic and Prov. Dict’y, says, that it is or was common in England. In Hampshire it is pronounced "amperzed", and very often "amperze-and". Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, mentions an ancient alphabet of the fourteenth century, now in the Harleian Library, at the end of which is "X Y wyth ESED AND per se—Amen".

(E?)(L?) https://kathrynpowers.myportfolio.com/ampersand-infograph

Ampersand Infographic

Infographic on the history of the ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-ancient-roots-of-punctuation

"Ampersand" ("&")

The first recorded "ampersand" — a rudimentary ligature of the letters "E" and "T" from the Latin word "et", meaning "and" — was scratched onto a Pompeian wall by an anonymous graffiti artist around the first century A.D. (shown above, image one). In time, the "ampersand" became a ubiquitous symbol: by the nineteenth century it was taught to schoolchildren as a twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet. Before that, however, it spent an entire millennium in competition with a rival mark. The "Tironian et" (7), had the twofold advantage of a head start and an impeccable pedigree. Created in the first century B.C. by "Tiro", secretary to Rome’s famous orator Cicero, it was well established as part of Tiro’s extensive shorthand system, the "notae Tironianae", by the time the proto-ampersand arrived a century later. The "Tironian et" continued to thrive in the Gothic-script religious texts of the Middle Ages but eventually fell out of use, along with the rest of Tiro’s system. The "ampersand", meanwhile, evolved, as newly legible Roman and italic scripts made their way from Renaissance Italy, eventually assuming its familiar form (above, right, forty-five through forty-eight). Nowadays, the "ampersand" is everywhere — except in Ireland, where observant motorists may still spot a "Tironian et" adorning the occasional Gaelic traffic sign.

(E?)(L?) http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=ampersand

ampersand
...
Abisselfa's a word from our past,
Formed by other words spoken too fast.
Back then scholars would say:
"A, by itself, A."
It's no wonder this word didn't last!

Here's an odd little word. An "abisselfa" was the letter "A" when that letter stood by itself as a syllable within a word such as the "A" in able. When spelling this word, a true scholar would say, "A, by itself, A - b - l - e" and, over time, that first part condensed itself down into "abisselfa" in what was called "cumulative spelling" before disappearing from the scene altogether. Another example of this is the word "ampersand", which came from a condensing of "and, per se, and".
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.odlt.org/

ampersand (&)

(E?)(L?) https://onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/ampersand-gebruik-van-het-teken/

Ampersand: gebruik van het &-teken

(E?)(L?) https://onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/ampersand/

& (ampersand): oorsprong

Is er een naam voor het &-teken?

Het "&-teken" wordt wel "ampersand" genoemd, een term die we geleend hebben uit het Engels. Waarschijnlijk is dit een vervorming van "and per se 'and'" (= "en op zichzelf (het teken) &"). Dit wilde zeggen: 'met het teken '&' op zichzelf wordt het woord and bedoeld'. Ook de termen "et-teken" en "en-teken" komen voor. "Ampersand" wordt in het Nederlands uitgesproken als "am-pur-sant" (de klemtoon verschilt: "AM-pur-sant" en "am-pur-SANT" zijn allebei mogelijk).

De "ampersand" is een combinatie van de letters "e" en "t" van het Latijnse "et" (= "en"). Deze letters werden samen verkort weergegeven als "&". Het teken is een overblijfsel van de vele samengestelde tekens (ligaturen) die in middeleeuwse handschriften en ook bij vijftiende-eeuwse drukkers in gebruik waren. K.F. Treebus vermeldt in zijn Tekstwijzer (Sdu, 1990) dat sommigen de Venetiaan Nicolas Jenson noemen als de drukker die - in 1470 - het teken voor het eerst in een gedrukt boek zou hebben toegepast. Anderen noemen als eerste gebruiker een andere drukker uit Venetië, Aldus Manutius. In ieder geval is het teken al uit handschriften uit de achtste eeuw bekend.

(E?)(L?) https://owad.de/word

Ampersand is contraction of the phrase "and per se and", meaning (the character) "&" by itself is "and" (a hybrid phrase, partly in Latin, partly in English). The symbol is based on the Latin word "et" = "and", and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (ligatures) attested in Pompeiian graffiti.

Despite what some believe, it is not from the Tironian Notes, a different form of shorthand probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus Tullius Tiro, which used a different symbol like a reversed capital gamma, to indicate "et".

Besides ampersand, you should also know these common sign names:

• = equals sign
• "" quotation marks
• () brackets
• ! exclamation mark
• : colon
• ; semi-colon
• - dash
• _ underscore
• @ the at sign
• , comma
• / stroke (slash US)
• . full stop (period US)

(E?)(L?) https://owad.de/word

ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/03/25/signs-and-symbols-the-names-of-punctuation-marks/

The names of punctuation marks

Chances are that you use them every day - from ‘ to # and ? to . - but where did common punctuation marks get their names?

"Ampersand"

The "ampersand" is the sign "&", used to mean "and". The shape of the symbol originated as a ligature for the Latin "et" ("and") - that is, it represents the merged "e" and "t". The name "ampersand" also represents a merge, although one that is perhaps more accidental.

When reciting the alphabet, letters that were also entire words in and of themselves (such as "a" and "I") could once be read as "a per se a", "i per se I", to make it clear that a word was intended, rather than a single letter. "Per se" is the Latin for "by itself", so the "&" symbol, which was traditionally included at the end of the alphabet, was originally chanted as "and per se and" (that is, "& by itself is and"). Over time, this was altered into the single word "ampersand", and the original phrase was largely forgotten.

...

(E?)(L?) https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/origin-of-ampersand

What is the origin of the "ampersand" ("&")?

The "ampersand" is the "&" symbol that stands in place of "and" - but where did it get its curious shape, and how long have people been using it?
...

(E?)(L?) https://practicaltypography.com/ampersands.html

...
The "ampersand" is one of the jauntiest characters. Font designers often use it as an opportunity to show off. Traditional ampersands take the shape of the letters et. Modern ampersands are often more stylized.
...

(E?)(L?) https://practicaltypography.com/ampersands.html

The "ampersand" is typographic shorthand for the word "and". The "ampersand" is halfway between a ligature and a contraction —it’s a stylized depiction of the Latin word "et".
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ampersand

ampersand

When is it OK to use an ampersand (&) instead of the word "and"?

(E?)(L?) https://schlimmerdurst.net/2016/06/27/cocktailrezepte-auf-einen-blick/

Ampersand

• 1 oz Cognac
• 1 oz Old Tom Gin
• 1 oz süßer Wermut
• 2 Spritzer Orange bitters
• 1 Teelöffel Orange Curaçao

Auf Eis rühren.

[Rezept nach A.S. Crockett]

(E?)(L?) http://www.searchenginedictionary.com/s.shtml

stop character:

Characters in URLs (like question marks, equal signs and ampersands) that signal the search engine spiders to stop crawling beyond a certain point.

(E?)(L?) http://www.sex-lexis.com/Sex-Dictionary/ampersand

"ampersand": Children's fun word and "euphemism" for the bottom (the ass or buttocks), based on the symbol "&" placed after the letter "Z" in older alphabets, hence the bottom letter of the alphabet. See ass for synonyms.

(E?)(L?) http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/06/the-ampersand-part-1-of-2/

A post from Shady Characters

The Ampersand, part 1 of 2

June 12, 2011 This is the first of three posts in a series on The Ampersand (&). Con­tinue to PART 2 or view ALL POSTS in the series.
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/06/the-ampersand-part-2-of-2/

A post from Shady Characters

The Ampersand, part 2 of 2

June 26, 2011 This is the second of three posts in a series on The Ampersand (&). Start at PART 1, con­tinue to PART 3 or view ALL POSTS in the series.
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/07/the-ampersand-part-2%c2%bd-of-2/

A post from Shady Characters

The Ampersand, part 2½ of 2

July 3, 2011 This is the last of three posts in a series on The Ampersand (&). Start at PART 1 or view ALL POSTS in the series.
...

(E?)(L?) http://vault.simplebits.com/notebook/2008/08/14/ampersands-2/

Use the Best Available Ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/design-history-get-to-know-your-ampersands/147798

Design History: Get to Know Your Ampersands

We see the symbol all of the time. Elegant, curved, infinitely malleable. But what’s the origin of the mysterious and ubiquitous "ampersand"? How can you choose which one is the best version to use? Read on to uncover all you wanted to know about this ancient tool of text:

Origin of the ampersand
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/ampersands-with-attitude/

Ampersands With Attitude

(E?)(L?) https://english.stackexchange.com/search?q=ampersand

80 results

• Q: Is an ampersand formal?
• Q: Correct use of ampersand
• Q: Is there any basis or history for calling @ an ampersand?
• Q: & What is the story behind the Ampersand? [duplicate]
• Q: Should there be a space before and after an ampersand when writing numerals?
• Q: Is it ever appropriate to use a space before and after an ampersand?
• Q: Did the Tironian “et” (“?”) have any impact on the ampersand being shift + 7 on English keyb… [closed]
• Q: When to use & instead of “and”
• Q: What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?
• Q: Is there a name or expression for the types of words which originate(etymology) from slurred… [duplicate]
• Q: Is David Mitchell's writing style in “Cloud Atlas” representative of the described time period?
• Q: Can I use two ampersands in my logo?
• Q: Why do we use '/' sign as a representation of 'or'?
• Q: & as a letter in the alphabet?
• Q: Which indefinite article to use if the noun starts with a non-letter character?
• Q: & as a letter in the alphabet?
• Q: Ye olde english alphabet question: Any other letters lost besides thorn, edh, and yogh?
• A: & What is the story behind the Ampersand?
• A: Is an ampersand formal?
• A: When to use & instead of “and”
• A: Should I put a comma before the last item in a list?
• A: Is it ever appropriate to use a space before and after an ampersand?
• A: Where did the “&” character come from, and why is it here?
• A: Is there any basis or history for calling @ an ampersand?
• A: Is it ever appropriate to use a space before and after an ampersand?
• A: What non-alphabetic characters are valid in English spelling?
• A: How do you write “and” in short form?
• A: Is an ampersand formal?
• A: Why are i.e. and e.g. abbreviated with periods between each word and etc. not?
• A: Can I use two ampersands in my logo?
• A: Meaning of the valediction “Yours, &c.”
• A: How to format “and” or “&” in a three-line header or title
• A: Can you use two “and”s in a sentence?
• A: What does “emdash” mean here?
• A: How to punctuate “A and B and C” properly if “B and C” form a set
• A: Correct use of ampersand
• A: When to use & instead of “and”
• A: & What is the story behind the Ampersand?
• A: What is the difference between “&” and “and” in writing?
• A: & as a letter in the alphabet?
• A: Did the Tironian “et” (“?”) have any impact on the ampersand being shift + 7 on English keyb…
• A: Is there an alternative, one-word name for the question mark?
• A: Which indefinite article to use if the noun starts with a non-letter character?
• A: Is it ever appropriate to use a space before and after an ampersand?
• A: Can you use two “and”s in a sentence?
• Q: Is there a distinct term for acronyms with multi-letter parts?
• A: Is David Mitchell's writing style in “Cloud Atlas” representative of the described time period?
• A: Use of the “&” symbol
• A: What Character Was Removed from the Alphabet?
• A: What do you call the phenomenon where a rectangle ? is shown because a font lacks a glyph?
• A: semicolons in the heading?
• Q: How to properly write “Research and Development” [duplicate]
• A: Is an ampersand formal?
• A: What does this mean: "Avoid oral calcium, dairy products, shark cartilage & exercise during …
• A: How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English?
• A: Is it ever appropriate to use a space before and after an ampersand?
• A: How to properly write “Research and Development”
• A: Meaning of 'amp' in an emotional-distress context
• A: What does this mean: "Avoid oral calcium, dairy products, shark cartilage & exercise during …
• A: Is there a formal spelling for the English letter names?
• A: Is it okay to use “Love & Regards” formally?
• Q: The use of “&” or “and” in a complicated list
• Q: How to format “and” or “&” in a three-line header or title [closed]
• Q: Where did the “&” character come from, and why is it here? [closed]
• Q: Does english have complex text layouts?
• A: How to format “and” or “&” in a three-line header or title
• A: When to use & instead of “and”
• A: Why do we use '/' sign as a representation of 'or'?
• A: Repetition of “and” in a list
• A: How did 7 come to be an abbreviation for 'and' in Old English?
• A: Does english have complex text layouts?
• A: When to use & instead of “and”
• A: Why use “that” instead of “the”?
• A: Is this correct for an email campaign subject?
• A: How to properly write multiple abbreviations
• A: Is the contraction of “and”, “'n'”, capitalized in a title?
• A: Alternative to “let me know”
• A: Ye olde english alphabet question: Any other letters lost besides thorn, edh, and yogh?
• A: When do I use the possessive with “Tiffany & Co”?
• A: Hats on to Hatarchy
• A: What Is the Real Name of the #?

(E?)(L?) http://www.symbols.com/symbol/ampersand

An "ampersand" (or "epershand"; "&") is a logogram representing the conjunction word "and". This symbol is a ligature of the letters "et", Latin for "and".

(E?)(L?) http://www.takeourword.com/Issue010.html

...
As with many recitations, this one came to lose some meaning for those reciting it, so that they came to think of the "& sign" as and "per se and" and then "ampersand" (with the "n" changing to an "m" before a "p"). Today’s spelling of the word dates from 1837.

Interestingly, "&" was invented in 63 BC by Marcus Tirus as shorthand for Latin "et" (which means "and"). You might still come across the words "et cetera" abbreviated as "&c."
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/15/from-a-to-ampersand

...
"ampersand"

Until as recently as the early 1900s, "&" was considered a letter of the alphabet and listed after Z in 27th position. To avoid confusion with the word "and", anyone reciting the alphabet would add "per se" ("by itself") to its name, so that the alphabet ended "X, Y, Z and per se &". This final "and per se and" eventually ran together, and the "ampersand" was born.
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/03/shady-characters-ampersands-keith-houston-review

Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and other Typographical Curiosities by Keith Houston - review
...
Keith Houston discusses 10 major typographical marks or groups of symbols: the "pilcrow" ("¶"), the "interrobang" (""?"2), the "octothorpe" ("#") the "ampersand" ("&"), the "@" symbol, the "asterisk" and the "dagger" ("*" and "†"), the "hyphen" ("-"), the "dash" ("—"), the "manicule" (""?"", ""?"", and ""?"" or ""?""), and "quotation marks" of various kinds (" ", ' ', and ? ?).
...

(E?)(L?) http://ampersandampersand.tumblr.com/
(E?)(L?) http://ampersandampersand.tumblr.com/page/53

300&65 Ampersands: 2010-12-31 - 2010-01-01

(E1)(L?) https://ampersandampersand.tumblr.com/

three-hundred and sixty five "&"

(E?)(L?) http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/ampersand/

• Ampersand
• Ampersandinistas
• Ampersand Garden wall
• Ampersandwich
• Ampersandstorm

(E?)(L?) http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2007/02/index.html

...
February 21, 2007

And Another Thing

I'm reading When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse, the new book by language maven Ben Yagoda. (Yagoda is a frequent contributor to Slate.com; his most recent column is a very entertaining consideration of the Internet-popularized interjections "awwa", "meh", "feh", and "heh".) In a post here last week, I'd mused about "and" and the symbols that represent it, so I was tickled to see Yagoda's own witty take on the subject:

Something about and - probably its utter indispensability - has made it prone to being represented by other means than just the standard three letters. The plus sign is a favorite of instant messagers, note takers, hip-hop songwriters, conglomerates (Gulf + Western), and people demonstrating eternal love by carving their initials into trees.

A little more elegant is the "ampersand" ("&"), which dates from the first century and is a ligature, or combination, of the letters "e" and "t" (and in Latin) into a single symbol. It was included in systems of typography starting in the fifteenth century, and ever since has been the character into which a type designer can inject the most artistic flair.

The word "ampersand" didn't come into being until the nineteenth century. At that time "&" was customarily taught as the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet and pronounced "and". When schoolchildren recited their ABCs, they concluded with the words "and, per se and" [i.e., by itself]. This eventually became corrupted to "ampersand". The symbol is a favorite of law and architecture firms, and is invaluable in parsing screenplay credits. For example, the script for the 1989 ampersand-titled film Turner & Hooch is credited to "Dennis Shyrack & Michael Blodgett and Daniel Petrie Jr. and Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr." This is not the result of haphazard typography. Rather, following Writers Guild of America guidelines, it indicates that Messrs. Shyrack and Blodgett and Messrs. Cash and Epps worked as teams, and that they and Mr. Petrie each contributed separate drafts of the screenplay. A good rule of thumb is that the more ampersands in the credits, the crummier the movie.
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.typography.com/blog/our-middle-name

...
Though it feels like a modern appendix to our ancient alphabet, the ampersand is considerably older than many of the letters that we use today.

By the time the letter "W" entered the Latin alphabet in the seventh century, "ampersands" had enjoyed six hundred years of continuous use; one appears in Pompeiian graffiti, establishing the symbol at least as far back as A.D. 79. One tidy historical account credits Marcus Tullius Tiro, Cicero’s secretary, with the invention of the "ampersand", and while this is likely a simplified retelling, it’s certainly true that Tiro was a tireless user of scribal abbreviations. One surviving construction of the ampersand bears his name, and keen typophiles can occasionally find the “Tironian and” out in the world today.
...

(E6)(L?) http://www.unicode.org/charts/charindex.html

• AMPERSAND - 0026
• Ampersand and Ligature-et Ornaments - 1F670
• AMPERSAND, TURNED - 214B
• Ligature-et Ornaments, Ampersand and - 1F670
• TURNED AMPERSAND - 214B

(E?)(L1) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ampersand
Achtung: hier findet man auch die Fake-News, wonach engl. "ampersand" im Jahr 1634 zu einem deutschen Drucker "Manfred Johann Amper" als "Amper's and" gebildet worden sein soll.

ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/ampersand

Ampersand

Reibetanz, John (1944 - )

Original Text:  Midland Swimmer (London, Ontario: Brick Books, 1996): 31.

(E?)(L?) https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/candlepwr/amped-on-ampersands/

Amped on Ampersands

April 7, 2011

By Julia Rubiner

Is there any logogram as elegant as the ampersand?

It's no wonder we're still using this ancient ligature millennia after it first appeared. Thanks to texting and tweeting, it's more popular than ever. After all, why expend three precious characters on "and" when the "ampersand" can do the job in one?

In these informal communiqués, the "ampersand" is indeed most welcome. But it's not an all-purpose substitute for "and". In more formal modes, its use is proscribed to only a few circumstances.
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dogeared/throwing-light-on-shady-characters/

Dog Eared - Books we love

Throwing Light on Shady Characters

September 16, 2013

By Mark Peters

Some punctuation marks hog the spotlight, like the versatile, omnipresent comma and the flirty, oft-abused semicolon. Question marks and exclamation marks — the good cop, bad cop of punctuation — are forever in your face. The period subtly but emphatically makes its presence known, while parentheses are off gossiping and tittering like teenage girls. These are the usual suspects most people think of when it comes to punctuation.

But the range of non-word squiggles is larger than you would think, and Keith Houston's new book Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks plumbs the history of these background players in the theater of language. Houston discusses familiar punctuation marks (the asterisk, the hyphen, the dash, the "ampersand") and bizarre oddities (the interrobang, the SarcMark) alike, showing how even the most literally marginal marks have a story to tell. As Houston puts it, "Every character we write or type is a link to the past, and every shady character doubly so."
...

(E?)(L?) https://www.waywordradio.org/ampersand-business-names/

Ampersands & Business Names

Posted by Grant Barrett on September 14, 2019 · Add Comment

Following in the tradition of Crate & Barrel and other businesses that include an ampersand in their names, the Hipster Business Name Generator offers fanciful names for trendy companies, such as Rainstorm & Egg or Peach & Creature. In the past, children reciting the alphabet were taught to include this pretzel-like symbol in the spot for the 27th letter, referring to it as "and per se and", which eventually became "ampersand".

(E?)(L?) https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/the-history-of-the-ampersand-and-showcase/

The History of the Ampersand and Showcase

By WebdesignerDepot Staff · Posted Jan. 13, 2010 · Reading time: 3 minutes
...
A Brief History of the Ampersand

The ampersand can be traced back to the first century AD. It was originally a ligature of the letters "E" and "T" ("et" is Latin for "and"). If you look at the modern "ampersand", you’ll likely still be able to see the "E" and "T" separately.

The first ampersands looked very much like the separate "E" and "T" combined, but as type developed over the next few centuries, it eventually became more stylized and less representative of its origins.

You can see the evolution of the ampersand below (1 is like the original Roman ligature, 2 and 3 are from the fourth century, and 4-6 are from the ninth century).

The modern ampersand has remained largely unchanged from the Carolignian ampersands developed in the ninth century.
...

(E?)(L?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand

"Ampersand"
...
Contents

• 1 Etymology
• 2 History
• 3 Writing the ampersand
• 4 Usage
• 5 Computing
• 5.1 Encoding and display
• 5.2 Programming languages
• 5.3 Text markup
• 5.4 Unix shells
• 5.5 Web standards
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 External links

...
Through popular etymology, it has been falsely claimed that André-Marie Ampère used the symbol in his widely read publications and that people began calling the new shape "Ampère's and".
...

(E?)(L?) http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AmpersandCurve.html

Ampersand Curve

The "ampersand curve" is the name given by Cundy and Rowlett (1989, p. 72) to the quartic curve with implicit equation:

(y^2-x^2)(x-1)(2x-3)=4(x^2+y^2-2x)^2
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/student?book=Student&va=ampersand

...
Etymology: from older "and per se and", spoken form of the phrase "& per se and", which followed Z in early lists of letters of the alphabet and meant "(the character) & by itself (stands for) and": "a character & standing for the word and".

(E?)(L?) http://www.word-detective.com/052003.html#ampersand

...
It comes from the practice once common in schools of reciting all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the "&" sign, pronounced "and", which was considered part of the alphabet, at least for learning purposes.

Any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", "&" and, at one point, "O") was preceded in the recitation by the Latin phrase "per se" ("by itself") to draw the students' attention to that fact. Thus the end of this daily ritual would go: "X, Y, Z and per se and." This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" by children rightly bored to tears, and the term crept into common English usage by around 1837.

The ampersand symbol itself, the "&", while devilishly hard to draw by hand, becomes much less mysterious when revealed as a stylized rendition of the Latin word "et", meaning, of course, "and". Finally, it's interesting to note that proofreaders reading copy aloud to one another (as I can attest based on a spell spent as a proofreader) pronounce the ampersand symbol "et" to distinguish it from the actual word "and".
...

(E?)(L?) http://www.wordsmith.org/words/ampersand.html

Ampersand

(E?)(L?) http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/archives/0399

Ampersand

(E?)(L?) http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-amp1.htm

Ampersand

This name for the character "&" is surprisingly recent, not being known before the late eighteenth century, though the character itself was in use long before printing was invented. It started life as a Roman scribe’s abbreviation of the Latin "et", meaning "and", and became common in the early medieval period. It was later taken over as an abbreviation for the English word "and".

"Ampersand" is a contraction of "and per se, and". This sounds extremely peculiar, but it’s a continuation of a medieval convention in which Latin "per se", "by or in itself", was often added to those letters that could stand alone as words: "A", "I" and "O" (as in “O for the wings of a dove”). "A per se, a" meant “a by itself makes the word a”. Since it stood first in the recital of the alphabet, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it came to mean a pre-eminent person or thing:

In the one, that is for lands and possessions, you have companions many; but in the other, my good lord, you are A per se A with us, to our comfort and joy unspeakable.

In a letter to Lord Russell from John Bradford, 1554.

It was common enough that at this period it was contracted to "apersey", meaning "the first, unique, or most distinguished person or thing".

It was usual in the eighteenth century to have children end their recital of the letters of the alphabet with "&", because it was so common. It was read out as "and per se, and", which meant that the symbol "&", whose name was "and", stood by itself and actually meant “and”.

As it came at the end, people sometimes said "from A to ampersand" to express the whole extent of something, as today we would say from "A to Z":

At length, having tried all the historians from great A, to ampersand, he perceives there is no escaping from the puzzle, but by selecting his own facts, forming his own conclusions, and putting a little trust in his own reason and judgment.

Gleanings through Wales, Holland and Westphalia, by “Mr. Pratt”, 1795. This, by the way, is also the earliest known use of ampersand. (Thanks to Fred Shapiro for finding this.)

In time, the character became known by this phrase, which became slurred through rote recital and oral transmission into all sorts of dialectal and variant forms, including "anparse", "empus-and", "emperzan" and "amperzed". It was only in the 1830s that one form, "ampersand", became dominant and conventional. By then, the old rote way of learning the alphabet seems to have been on the way out:

The expression "and per se, and", to signify the contraction "&", substituted for that conjunction, is not yet forgotten in the nursery.

A Glossary, or Collection, of Words, by Robert Nares, 1822.

(E?)(L?) http://www.worldwidewords.org/

"ASPERAND": Rick McLaughlin told me about this word. When many years ago I wrote about the varied names used worldwide for the symbol that in English is formally "commercial at" ("@") this one didn't feature. There are many references to it online, the earliest being a posting on misc.writing on 31 December 1996 in which Jerry Kindall notes that he recently heard the word. A rare sighting in print is in Grammar with a Global Perspective by F Melrose Davis, in which the alternative "ampersat" is also given. That's slightly older: Tim Gowens was recorded as suggesting it in February 1996 in the British newspaper, "the Independent", as a blend of "ampersand" and "at". "Asperand" might also be a type of blend, from "asterisk" and "ampersand", but that's a guess. Neither word, despite appearing in at least one dictionary of computing, shows any signs of becoming popular. They are mentioned, but are not used unselfconsciously as the name for the symbol, though Mr McLaughlin says he uses "asperand".

(E?)(L?) https://www.yourdictionary.com/ampersand

ampersand

(E?)(L?) https://www.yourdictionary.com/ampersand-codes

ampersand codes - Computer Definition

A set of HTML "escape codes" used to render special characters and foreign letters. Ampersand codes are preceded with an ampersand, followed by a mnemonic name or their ASCII number and ended with a semicolon. They are also used to enable HTML and XML tags to display intact for instructional purposes, rather than be executed by the rendering engine.

The example below uses the HTML codes for the "less-than" ("<") and "greater-than" (">") characters, which open and close an HTML or XML tag. The first example shows the word "Hello" coded as a boldfaced word, and the Web browser would display it bold without the tags. In the second example, used for teaching HTML, the tags and word would be displayed. See escape code.

Following are widely used "HTML ampersand codes". Ampersand codes can always be written as an ASCII number (see ASCII chart); however, many commonly used symbols have mnemonic equivalents such as the "lt" and "gt". Note that numeric codes include a "number sign" ("#") before the number.

(E?)(L?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM-ZjCmoLPw

Ampersand

(E1)(L1) http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=0&content=ampersand
Abfrage im Google-Corpus mit 15Mio. eingescannter Bücher von 1500 bis heute.

Engl. "ampersand" taucht in der Literatur um das Jahr 1830 auf.

(E?)(L?) https://corpora.uni-leipzig.de/


Erstellt: 2017-11

apostrophe
Apostroph (W3)

The "Apostrophe Protection Society" was started in 2001 by John Richards, now its Chairman, with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.

We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made mistakes, but are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.

...
But wait: what does the OED say in small type, there at the end of definition 2 ("The sign (') used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters... and as a sign of the modern English genitive or possessive case")? It says... it says...

In the latter case, it originally marked merely the omission of "e" in writing, as in "fox's, James's", and was equally common in the nominative plural", esp. of proper names and foreign words (as "folio's = folioes"); it was gradually disused in the latter, and extended to all possessives, even where "e" had not been previously written, as in "man's, children's, conscience' sake". [Emphasis added.]

Why, that means that the apostrophe was originally, and thus properly, used in the plural; those greengrocers are right, and the "Apostrophe Protection Society" is wrong! Surely the Williams (Buckley and Safire) and the other preservers will lay off the ancient plural apostrophe and begin working on excising that excrescent final syllable.
...

B, b (W3)

B : is the second letter of the English alphabet. (See Guide to Pronunciation, // 196, 220.) It is etymologically related to "p", "v", "f", "w" and "m", letters representing sounds having a close organic affinity to its own sound; as in Eng. "bursar" and "purser"; Eng. "bear" and Lat. "ferre"; Eng. "silver" and Ger. "silber"; Lat. "cubitum" and It. "gomito"; Eng. "seven", Anglo-Saxon "seofon", Ger. "sieben", Lat. "septem", Gr. "epta", Sanskrit "saptan".
The form of letter "B" is Roman, from Greek "B" ("Beta"), of Semitic origin. The small "b" was formed by gradual change from the capital "B".

bbc
Discovering sign language dialects

Did you know British Sign Language has regional dialects? The University of Bristol's Centre for Deaf Studies is collecting data from all over the UK for the BBC's Voices project.

C, c (W3)

Cemetry Iconography - Friedhofszeichen

• Acorn - a baby or young child
• Anchor - Hope (Early Christian Symbol) Has nothing to do with the sea, it refers to Pope Clement who was tied to one and drowned and the Anchor was a common symbol-- it was a hidden or disguised cross. Often the chain on it broken, the ship is gone from sight to heaven.
• Angels - means Spirituality and guardians. Symbolizing safety.
• Arrow - Mortality of the humans
• Bed - at rest
• Black and white tiles - checkered pattern or similar - Good and Evil
• Book- Faith (Bible - also other books such as the Book of Mormon or a Torah in a rolled appearance)
• Buttercup - means cheerfulness
• Circle - Eternity

D, d (W3)

• D : The fourth letter of the English alphabet, and a vocal consonant. The English letter is from Latin, which is from Greek, which took it from Phoenician, the probable ultimate origin being Egyptian. It is related most nearly to "t" and "th"; as, Eng. "deep", G. "tief"; Eng. "daughter", G. "tochter", Gr. "qyga`thr", Skr. "duhitr". See Guide to Pronunciation, 178, 179, 229.
• D : The nominal of the second tone in the model major scale (that in C), or of the fourth tone in the relative minor scale of C (that in A minor), or of the key tone in the relative minor of F.
• D : As a numeral "D" stands for "500". In this use it is not the initial of any word, or even strictly a letter, but one half of the sign "/" (?) (or "/" (?) ) the original Tuscan numeral for "1000".

dictionary.com
Why are zero and the letter "O" both circles?

Long, long ago, typewriters made no distinction between the number "0" and the letter "O". While the two share the same shape, the origin of both number and letter are quite different. Let’s look at the distinct astrological and optical inspirations that created these seemingly identical symbols.

Derived from the Semitic letter "Ayin" and inspired by the circular eye-shaped Egyptian hieroglyph for "eye", the letter "O" is the fourth most popular letter in the English alphabet. The sound is probably a derivation of the Arabic letter called "Ayn".
...
In mathematics, the number "0", or simply "zero", most likely derived its shape from the sun and the moon. Many have ascribed divine qualities to circles. The study of the circle eventually led to the development of astronomy, geometry and calculus.
...
It wasn’t until the 12th century via the Arabic numeric system and the work of the Persian scientist al-Khwarizmi that the number "zero" was introduced to the Western world through Latin translations of the al-Khwarizmi’s book titled, appropriately, Arithmetic.

dictionary.com - Wdwu
Why do we use capital and lower case letters,
and how did both types come to be?

...
The original twenty-one letters in the Latin alphabet are derived from the uncial ("of an inch", "of an ounce") style of writing. As the Latin alphabet was adapted for other languages over time, more letters were added that also incorporated the majuscule lettering thus giving us the Modern Latin alphabet from which the English alphabet is derived.

As the uncial script evolved, a smaller, more rounded and connected Greek-style lettering called "minuscule" was introduced around the 9th century AD. It soon became very common to mix miniscule and some uncial or capital letters within a word, the latter used to add emphasis. In contrast, many other writing systems such as the Georgian language and Arabic make no distinction between upper and lowercase lettering – a system called "unicase".
...

digital

E, e (W3)

• E pl. : of Amt
• E : The fifth letter of the English alphabet.
• E : E is the third tone of the model diatonic scale. E/ (E flat) is a tone which is intermediate between D and E.
• E pl. : of Notopodium
• E- : A Latin prefix meaning "out", "out of", "from"; also, "without". See "Ex-".

F, f (W3)

• F : F is the sixth letter of the English alphabet, and a nonvocal consonant. Its form and sound are from the Latin. The Latin borrowed the form from the Greek digamma "/" (?), which probably had the value of English "w" consonant. The form and value of Greek letter came from the Phoenician, the ultimate source being probably Egyptian.
  
  Etymologically "f" is most closely related to "p", "k", "v", and "b"; as in E. "five", Gr. "pe`nte"; E. "wolf", L. "lupus", Gr. "ly`kos"; E. "fox", "vixen"; "fragile", "break"; "fruit", "brook", v. t.; E. "bear", L. "ferre". See Guide to Pronunciation, // 178, 179, 188, 198, 230.
• F v. t.: The name of the fourth tone of the model scale, or scale of C. F sharp (F /) is a tone intermediate between F and G.

fingers crossed

Font (W3)

g - w - Wechsel (W3)

G, g (W3)

• G : G is the seventh letter of the English alphabet, and a vocal consonant. It has two sounds; one simple, as in "gave", "go", "gull"; the other compound (like that of j), as in "gem", "gin", "dingy". See Guide to Pronunciation, // 231-6, 155, 176, 178, 179, 196, 211, 246.
• G : G is the name of the fifth tone of the natural or model scale; - called also "sol" by the Italians and French. It was also originally used as the treble clef, and has gradually changed into the character represented in the margin. See Clef. G/ (G sharp) is a tone intermediate between G and A.

grammarbook
Quotation Marks and Punctuation

...
In Grandma’s day, a period used with quotation marks followed logic: Example: Myrtle said the word “darn”. The period went outside the quote because only the last word was in quotation marks, not the entire sentence. Example: Myrtle said, “I would never say that.” The period went inside the quotation mark because the entire sentence is a quote.

Today, in American English usage, the period always goes inside the quotation mark.

Example: Myrtle said the word “darn.”

This does not follow logic, but it makes life easier for those of us who have enough to think about besides punctuation.
...

Grocers' Apostrophe
Greengrocers' Apostrophe (W3)

greengrocers' apostrophe (green.groh.surz uh.PAWS.truh.fee) n. An apostrophe erroneously inserted before the final "s" in the plural form of a word. Also: greengrocer's apostrophe.

H, h (W3)

• H : the eighth letter of the English alphabet, is classed among the consonants, and is formed with the mouth organs in the same position as that of the succeeding vowel. It is used with certain consonants to form digraphs representing sounds which are not found in the alphabet, as "sh", "th", "/" (?), as in "shall", "thing", "/ine" (?) (for "zh" see /274); also, to modify the sounds of some other letters, as when placed after "c" and "p", with the former of which it represents a compound sound like that of "tsh", as in "charm" (written also "tch" as in "catch"), with the latter, the sound of "f", as in "phase", "phantom". In some words, mostly derived or introduced from foreign languages, "h" following "c" and "g" indicates that those consonants have the hard sound before "e", "i", and "y", as in "chemistry", "chiromancy", "chyle", "Ghent", "Ghibelline", etc.; in some others, "ch" has the sound of "sh", as in "chicane". See Guide to Pronunciation, // 153, 179, 181-3, 237-8.
• H : The seventh degree in the diatonic scale, being used by the Germans for "B natural". See B.

Hosenbandorden, Honi soit qui mal y pense (W3)

Hosenbandorden

I, i (W3)

• I : I, the ninth letter of the English alphabet, takes its form from the Phoenician, through the Latin and the Greek. The Phoenician letter was probably of Egyptian origin. Its original value was nearly the same as that of the Italian "I", or long "e" as in "mete".
  Etymologically "I" is most closely related to "e", "y", "j", "g"; as in "dint", "dent", "beverage", L. "bibere"; E. "kin", AS. "cynn"; E. "thin", AS. "/ynne" (?); E. "dominion", "donjon", "dungeon".
• I : In our old authors, "I" was often used for "ay" (or "aye"), "yes", which is pronounced nearly like it.
• I : As a numeral, "I" stands for "1", "II" for "2", etc.
• I object.: The nominative case of the pronoun of the first person; the word with which a speaker or writer denotes himself.
• "I-" prefix.: See "Y-".

i-mutation (W3)

...
Noun plurals in "-iz": "man" - "men", "foot" - "feet", "tooth" - "teeth", "goose" - "geese", "louse" - "lice", "mouse" - "mice". Along with "woman" - "women" (derived from "wif-man") these are the only survivors of this class, which was numerous in Old English and included such words as the ancestors of modern book, goat, and friend, which now have gone over to the "-s"-plural.
...

J, j (W3)

J : J is the tenth letter of the English alphabet. It is a later variant form of the Roman letter "I", used to express a consonantal sound, that is, originally, the sound of English "y" in "yet". The forms "J" and "I" have, until a recent time, been classed together, and they have been used interchangeably.

jcf - Joseph Campbell Foundation Associates

K, k (W3)

K : the eleventh letter of the English alphabet, is nonvocal consonant. The form and sound of the letter "K" are from the Latin, which used the letter but little except in the early period of the language. It came into the Latin from the Greek, which received it from a Phoenician source, the ultimate origin probably being Egyptian.
Etymologically "K" is most nearly related to "c", "g", "h" (which see).

L, l (W3)

• L a.: Having the general shape of the (capital) letter "L"; as, an "L beam", or "L-beam".
• L a.: Elevated; - a symbol for "el." as an abbreviation of "elevated" in "elevated road or railroad".
• L n.: An elevated road; as, to ride on the L.
• L : "L" is the twelfth letter of the English alphabet, and a vocal consonant. It is usually called a semivowel or liquid. Its form and value are from the Greek, through the Latin, the form of the Greek letter being from the Phoenician, and the ultimate origin prob. Egyptian.
  Etymologically, it is most closely related to "r" and "u"; as in "pilgrim", "peregrine", "couch" (fr. "collocare"), "aubura" (fr. LL. "alburnus").
• L : As a numeral, L stands for fifty in the English, as in the Latin language.
• L n.: An extension at right angles to the length of a main building, giving to the ground plan a form resembling the letter L; sometimes less properly applied to a narrower, or lower, extension in the direction of the length of the main building; a wing.
• L n.: A short right-angled pipe fitting, used in connecting two pipes at right angles.

Lautverschiebung DE - UK

• b - f, v / haben - to have
• ch - k / brechen - brake
• d - th / Ding - thing
• ei - o / allein - alone
• f - p / Hoffnung - hope
• g - y / sagen - say
• j - y / Jahr - year
• k - c / kalt - cold
• ss - t / hassen - hate
• t - d / Tag - day
• z - t / zu - to / zahm - tame

Ligature (W3)

• ARABIC LIGATURE BISMILLAH AR-RAHMAN AR-RAHEEM U+FDFD
• Arabic Ligatures U+FBEA
• Armenian Ligatures U+FB13

• BISMILLAH AR-RAHMAN AR-RAHEEM, ARABIC LIGATURE U+FDFD

• IJ, LATIN SMALL LIGATURE U+0133

• Latin Ligatures U+FB00
• LATIN SMALL LIGATURE IJ U+0133
• LIGATURE IJ, LATIN SMALL U+0133
• ligature tie U+0361
• ligature tie below U+035C
• Ligatures, Arabic U+FBEA
• Ligatures, Armenian U+FB13
• Ligatures, Latin U+FB00

• SMALL LIGATURE IJ, LATIN U+0133

• tie below, ligature U+035C
• tie, ligature U+0361

• LEGATURE, LIGATURES, BROCATELLES ou MEZELINE, NA, [Commerce; Commerce; Comm.]
• Ligature, NA, [Theology; Théologie; Theolog.]
• Ligature, NA, [Necromancy; Divination; Divinat.]
• Ligature, Louis, [Surgery; Chirurgie; terme de Chirurgie]
• Ligature, Venel, [Treatment; Therapeutique; Therapeutique.]
• Ligature, Rousseau, [Music; Musique; Musique.]
• Ligature, NA, [Commerce; Commerce; Comm.]
• Ligature, NA, [Commerce; Commerce; Comm.]
• Ligature, NA, [Printing; Imprimerie; dans l'imprimerie]

M, m (W3)

• M : M, the thirteenth letter of the English alphabet, is a vocal consonant, and from the manner of its formation, is called the labio-nasal consonant. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 178-180, 242.
• M : As a numeral, "M" stands for "one thousand", both in English and Latin.
• M n.: A quadrat, the face or top of which is a perfect square; also, the size of such a square in any given size of type, used as the unit of measurement for that type: 500 m's of pica would be a piece of matter whose length and breadth in pica m's multiplied together produce that number.
• M n.: A brand or stigma, having the shape of an M, formerly impressed on one convicted of manslaughter and admitted to the benefit of clergy.

N, n (W3)

• N : the fourteenth letter of English alphabet, is a vocal consonent, and, in allusion to its mode of formation, is called the dentinasal or linguanasal consonent. Its commoner sound is that heard in "ran", "done"; but when immediately followed in the same word by the sound of "g" hard or "k" (as in "single", "sink", "conquer"), it usually represents the same sound as the digraph "ng" in "sing", "bring", etc. This is a simple but related sound, and is called the gutturo-nasal consonent. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 243-246.
• N n.: A measure of space equal to half an M (or em); an en.

naturesalphabet

O, o (W3)

• O : "O", the fifteenth letter of the English alphabet, derives its form, value, and name from the Greek "O", through the Latin. The letter came into the Greek from the Phoenician, which possibly derived it ultimately from the Egyptian.
  Etymologically, the letter "o" is most closely related to "a", "e", and "u"; as in E. "bone", AS. "ban"; E. "stone", AS. "stan"; E. "broke", AS. "brecan" to "break"; E. "bore", AS. "beran" to "bear"; E. "dove", AS. "d/fe" (?); E. "toft", "tuft"; "tone", "tune"; "number", F. "nombre".
• O : Among the ancients, O was a mark of triple time, from the notion that the ternary, or number 3, is the most perfect of numbers, and properly expressed by a circle, the most perfect figure.
• O n.: The letter O, or its sound.
• O n.: Something shaped like the letter O; a circle or oval.
• O n.: A cipher; zero.
• O a.: One.
• O interj.: An exclamation used in calling or directly addressing a person or personified object; also, as an emotional or impassioned exclamation expressing pain, grief, surprise, desire, fear, etc.
• O' : A prefix to Irish family names, which signifies "grandson" or "descendant of", and is a character of dignity; as, "O'Neil", "O'Carrol".
• O' prep.: A shortened form of "of" or "on".

Oxford Comma (W3)

Going, Going, And Gone?: No, The Oxford Comma Is Safe ... For Now
by Linda Holmes
June 30, 2011
...
This blew up yesterday when there was a rumbling that the "University of Oxford" was dumping its own comma. - As it turned out, this wasn't the case. - They haven't changed their authoritative style guide, but they've changed their internal PR department procedures that they use for press releases. The PR department and the editorial department are two different things, so this doesn't necessarily mean much of anything, except that it's maybe a little embarrassing to have the PR department of the university with which you're affiliated abandon your style guide.
...

...
note that there is generally no comma between the penultimate item and "and"/"or", unless required to prevent ambiguity - this is sometimes referred to as the "Oxford comma".

• I ate fish and chips, bread and jam, and ice cream.
• We studied George III, William and Mary, and Henry XIII.

...

What is the 'Oxford comma'?

The Oxford Comma: Hart’s Rules

Owen Paterson declares war on the Oxford comma

Owen Paterson has produced a 10-point guide for his civil servants on the pitfalls of common punctuation errors including the Oxford Comma.
...

Serial comma

In punctuation, a "serial comma" or "series comma" (also called "Oxford comma" and "Harvard comma") is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries might be punctuated either as "Portugal, Spain, and France" (with the serial comma), or as "Portugal, Spain and France" (without the serial comma).

Opinions among writers and editors differ on whether to use the serial comma. In American English, a majority of style guides mandate use of the serial comma, including The Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White's Elements of Style, and the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual. The Associated Press Stylebook for journalistic writing advises against it. It is used less often in British English, but some British style guides recommend it, including the "Oxford University Press's style manual" and Fowler's Modern English Usage. Some writers of British English use it only where necessary to avoid ambiguity.
...

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma (A CAPPELLA!?)

P, p (W3)

Peace-Zeichen, Friedens-Zeichen (W3)

Phonetic Alphabet

• A for 'Orses (hay for horses)
• B for Mutton (beef or mutton)
• C for Miles (see for miles)
• D for Ential (differential)
• E for Brick (heave a brick)
• F for Vessence (effervescence)
• G for Get It (gee! forget it!)
• H for Bless You (aitisshue [a sneeze])
• I for The Engine (Ivor the Engine [children's story])
• J for Oranges (Jaffa oranges [brand name])
• K for Restaurant (cafe or restaurant)
• L for Leather (hell for leather)
• M for Sis (emphasis)
• N for Lope (envelope)
• O for The Garden Wall (over ...)
• P for Relief (pee ...)
• Q for a Bus (queue ...)
• R for Mo (half a mo[ment])
• S for Rantzen (Esther Rantzen [TV personality]
• T for Two
• U for Me (you for me)
• V for La France (vive la France)
• W for The Winnings (double you for the winnings)
• X for Breakfast (eggs ...)
• Y for Husband (wife or husband)
• Z for Wind (zephyr wind)

Q, q (W3)

Q : the seventeenth letter of the English alphabet, has but one sound (that of "k"), and is always followed by "u", the two letters together being sounded like "kw", except in some words in which the "u" is silent. See Guide to Pronunciation, / 249. "Q" is not found in Anglo-Saxon, "cw" being used instead of "qu"; as in "cwic", "quick"; "cwen", "queen". The name ("k/" (?)) is from the French "ku", which is from the Latin name of the same letter; its form is from the Latin, which derived it, through a Greek alphabet, from the Phoenician, the ultimate origin being Egyptian.

R, r (W3)

R : "R", the eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, is a vocal consonant. It is sometimes called a semivowel, and a liquid. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 178, 179, and 250-254.

robert.marty
76 Definitions of the Sign
by C.S.Peirce

S, s (W3)

SAMPA

significant (W3)

"significant" (adj.) 1570s, "having a meaning", from Latin "significantem" (nominative "significans", present participle of "significare" "make known", "indicate" (see "signify"). Earlier in the same sense was "significative" (c.1400). Often "having a special or secret meaning", hence "important" (1761). Related: "Significantly". "Significant figure" is from 1680s. "Significant other" (n.) attested by 1961, in psychology, "the most influential other person in the patient's world".

significant

significant

News Words: Significant
Published 03/13/2015
Significant means important. But how is it used in news stories? Our hosts will tell you. See the word in action.
...

Significant

significant

Standard (W3)

...
Das Wort "Standard" stammt aus dem Englischen, wo die "Fahne des Königs", die "Standarte", als Garantie dafür galt, dass die Männer, die sie trugen, das Recht und den Willen des Königs repräsentierten. Wer die königliche "Standarte" hat, hat immer Recht. Der "Standard" setzt die Maßstäbe für die Wirklichkeit, den sogenannten "Königs-Weg". Das klingt optimal, ist aber das Produkt reiner Willkür. "Standards" und Normen haben gemein, dass sich Menschen an sie gewöhnen. Alternativen verblassen mit der Zeit. Andererseits kommt man im Zeitalter der Ballistik ohne "Standards" nicht aus. Alles wird vorausberechnet, kaum einmal wird nachgedacht. Der Aufstieg des "Standards" und der Norm ist mit dem Industriezeitalter verwoben. Wo massenhaft produziert wird, sind Abweichungen von der Norm fatale Fehler. Eine Maschine produziert Millionen Teile. Ob Kanone oder Maschine - eine falsche Einstellung macht die ganze Produktion zunichte.
...

symbol (W3)

The definition of "symbol"

The word "symbol" is derived from the Greek word "symbolon". In ancient Greece it was a custom to break a slate of burned clay into several pieces and distribute them within the group. When the group reunited the pieces were fitted together (Greek "symbollein"). This confirmed the members belonging to the group.

T, t (W3)

T : the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, is a nonvocal consonant. With the letter "h" it forms the digraph "th", which has two distinct sounds, as in "thin", "then". See Guide to Pronunciation, //262-264, and also //153, 156, 169, 172, 176, 178-180.

Tudorrose (W3)

U
u (W3)

U : the twenty-first letter of the English alphabet, is a cursive form of the letter "V", with which it was formerly used interchangeably, both letters being then used both as vowels and consonants. "U" and "V" are now, however, differentiated, "U" being used only as a vowel or semivowel, and "V" only as a consonant. The true primary vowel sound of "U", in Anglo-Saxon, was the sound which it still retains in most of the languages of Europe, that of long "oo", as in "tool", and short "oo", as in "wood", answering to the French "ou" in "tour".

Etymologically "U" is most closely related to "o", "y" (vowel), "w", and "v"; as in "two", "duet", "dyad", "twice"; "top", "tuft"; "sop", "sup"; "auspice", "aviary". See V, also O and Y.

Uni Oxford
Style Guide - University of Oxford

• Abbreviations
• Capitalisation
• Numbers
• Punctuation
• Names and titles
• Miscellaneous
• Bold and italic text
• Word usage and spelling

Introduction

The "University of Oxford Style Guide" aims to provide a guide to writing and formatting documents written by staff on behalf of the University (or one of its constituent departments etc). It is part of the University’s branding toolkit, which enables the University’s formal documentation to be presented consistently across all communications.
...

Download a PDF of the Style Guide (1168 kb)

Glossary of Oxford terms

| Academic dress | Aegrotat | Almanack | Alumni | Ashmolean - www.ashmolean.org | Assessor | Bate Collection - www.bate.ox.ac.uk | Battels | Bedel | Blue | Blue Book | Blueprint - www.ox.ac.uk/blueprint | Botanic Garden - www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk | Bulldog | Bursar | Calendar | Carfax | Chancellor - www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/oxford_people/key_university_officers/chancellor.html | Cherwell | Christ Church Picture Gallery - www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery | Churchill | Class | Clerk of the Market | Collections | College | Collegiate University | Coming up/going down | Commoner | Conference of Colleges | Conference Oxford - www.conference-oxford.com | Confirmation of Status | Congregation | Continuing Education, Department of - www.conted.ox.ac.uk | Convocation | Convocation House | Council - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/council | Creweian Oration | Custodians | Dean | Degree Days - www.ox.ac.uk/students/graduation/ceremonies/dates | Demonstrating | Department | Director of Study | Divinity School | Division | Domestic Bursar | Don | DPhil | Duke Humfrey's Library | EdC | Eights | Emeritus | Encaenia | Estates Bursar | Examination Regulations - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/examregs | Examination Schools | Exhibition | Expulsion | Faculty | Fellows | Final Honour School | Finalist | Finals | First | First public examination (PE) | Formal Hall | Fresher | Full Economic Costs (FEC) | Full term - www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/university_year/dates_of_term.html | Gathered field | Gaudy | Gazette - www.ox.ac.uk/gazette | GCR | Governing body | Graduate | Greats | Grey Book | GSO | Half-Blue - www.sport.ox.ac.uk/sports-federation/blues | Harcourt Arboretum | Head of House | High Table | Highers | Hilary term | The House | iProcurement - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/purchasing | JCR (Junior Common Room) | Jenner Institute | Joint appointment | Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) | JR (John Radcliffe) | JRF (Junior Research Fellow) | Junior Member | Language Centre | Lecturer | Literae humaniores | LMH - www.lmh.ox.ac.uk | Long vac | Marketplace | Master | Matriculation | MCR (Middle Common Room) | Michaelmas term | Mods (Moderations) | Moral Tutor | Museum of the History of Science - www.mhs.ox.ac.uk | Museum of Natural History - www.oum.ox.ac.uk | Norrington Table - ww.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/facts_and_figures/undergraduate_degr_3.html#anorrington_scores_and_number_of_students_20062011_sorted_alphabetically | Noughth week | Old Road Campus | OLIS | OPENdoor - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/opendoor | Oracle Financials - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/financials | Oracle Student System | OUDCE | OUDS | OUP | OUSU - www.ousu.org | Oxbridge | Oxford Limited - www.oushop.com | Oxford Magazine | Oxford Student | Oxford Thinking - www.campaign.ox.ac.uk | Oxford Today - www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk | Oxford University Archives | Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust | Oxford University Press - www.oup.com | Oxford University Society - www.alumni.ox.ac.uk | Papers | Parks | Permanent private hall | Personnel Committee | PGCE | PGR | PGT | Pigeon post | Pitt Rivers Museum - www.prm.ox.ac.uk | Planon | Postdoctoral | Postgraduate | PPE | PPP | PRAC (Planning and Resource Allocation Committee) | Prelims (Preliminary examinations) | Pre-sessional | President | Principal | Proctors | Pro-Vice-Chancellor (PVC) | Provost | PRS (Probationer Research Student) | Public Orator | Radcliffe Camera | Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) | Recognised Student | Rector | Regent | Registrar | Regius Professor | Research Committee | Research Excellence Framework (REF) | Resolve | Romanes Lecture | Ruskin | Rustication | Salary exchange | Salary sacrifice | Schools | SCR | SEH | Sending down | Sheldonian Theatre | Split Finals | Springboard - www.learning.ox.ac.uk/support/women/programmes | Steward | Stint | Student | Sub fusc | Supplicate | Suspension | Teddy Hall | Torpids | Trinity term | Tutor | Tutorial | Tutorial System | Undergraduate | Union, The | Univ | University Calendar | University Chest | University Club | University Parks | Vac (vacation) | Varsity | Varsity Match | Vice-Chancellor (VC) | Viva (viva voce) | Voltaire Foundation | Warden | Wytham Woods

P. 16 ff

Glossary of Oxford University acronyms

| AAD - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ac-div/index.shtml | ADEX | AHRC | ARACU - www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/services/disability/aracu | BBSRC | BDLSS - www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bdlss | BESC - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/regulations/520-122d.shtml | BIS - www.bis.gov.uk | CABDyN - www.cabdyn.ox.ac.uk/complexity_home.asp | CBF - www.cbf.ox.ac.uk | CCMP - www.ccmp.ox.ac.uk | CCVTM - www.ccvtm.ox.ac.uk | CEMS - www.cems.ox.ac.uk | CEU - www.ceu.ox.ac.uk | CICTC | COMPAS - www.compas.ox.ac.uk | CPD - http://cpd.conted.ox.ac.uk | CSG - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/pras/committees/workinggroups/capital | CTSU - www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk | CUF | CUREC - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/curec | DARS | DGS | DPAG - www.dpag.ox.ac.uk | DTU - www.dtu.ox.ac.uk | EAS - www.lang.ox.ac.uk/courses/english.html | ECI - www.eci.ox.ac.uk | EdC - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/epsc | EDU - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop | ELQ - www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/fees/information/elq | EPSRC | ERG | ESRC | ETHOX Centre - www.ethox.org.uk | FEC | FHS | FMRIB | FOI - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/foi | GAO | GPC | HEFCE | HESA | HFS - www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/hfs | HRIS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/personnel/corehr | IBME - www.ibme.ox.ac.uk | ICTF - www.ict.ox.ac.uk/oxford/groups/ict_forum | IMSU - www.imsu.ox.ac.uk | ITLP | ITSS | JCC | JCUSS | JISC - www.jisc.ac.uk | JR | JRAM | KTP | LASR | LICR | MPLS | MRC | MSD | NDA | NDM | NERC | NHSPS | NPEU - www.npeu.ox.ac.uk | NSMS | OCDEM - www.ocdem.com | OCIAM - www2.maths.ox.ac.uk/ociam | ODIT - www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit | OED - www.oed.com | OeRC - www.oerc.ox.ac.uk | OHS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/uohs | OIA - www.ageing.ox.ac.uk | OII - www.oii.ox.ac.uk | OLI - www.learning.ox.ac.uk | OPENdoor - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/opendoor | OPIC - www.opic.ox.ac.uk | OPPF - www.oppf.ox.ac.uk | ORA - http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk | OSC - www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/resources/osc | OSEM - www.osem.ox.ac.uk | OSPS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/pensions/osps | OSS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/bsp/studsys-support-centre | OUEM - www.ouem.co.uk | OUMC - www.museums.ox.ac.uk | OUP - www.oup.com | OXAM - http://oxam.ox.ac.uk | OxCERT - www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/security | OxCORT - www.oxcort.ox.ac.uk | OXLIP+ | PAD - www.ox.ac.uk/public_affairs/index.html | PI | PRAC | PRAS | PVC | QA | QAA | QE | REF - www.ref.ac.uk | ROQ | SGC - www.sgc.ox.ac.uk | SKOPE - www.skope.ox.ac.uk | SIS | SLC - www.slc.co.uk | SOLO - http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk | SORP - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/information/accountingpolicy | SSO | STEM subjects | STFC | STRUBI - www.strubi.ox.ac.uk | TALL - www.tall.ox.ac.uk | TRAC - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/trac | UAS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk | UCU - www.ucu.org.uk | USS - www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/pensions/uss | UUK | VLE | VRE - www.vre.ox.ac.uk | WebAuth - https://webauth.ox.ac.uk | WebLearn - http://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/site | WildCRU - www.wildcru.org | WIMM - www.imm.ox.ac.uk | WTCHG - www.well.ox.ac.uk

Glossary of obsolete terms

V, v (W3)

• V : V, the twenty-second letter of the English alphabet, is a vocal consonant. "V" and "U" are only varieties of the same character, "U" being the cursive form, while "V" is better adapted for engraving, as in stone. The two letters were formerly used indiscriminately, and till a comparatively recent date words containing them were often classed together in dictionaries and other books of reference (see U). The letter "V" is from the Latin alphabet, where it was used both as a consonant (about like English "w") and as a vowel. The Latin derives it from a form ("V") of the Greek vowel "/" (?) (see "Y"), this Greek letter being either from the same Semitic letter as the digamma "F" (see "F"), or else added by the Greeks to the alphabet which they took from the Semitic.
  Etymologically "v" is most nearly related to "u", "w", "f", "b", "p"; as in "vine", "wine"; "avoirdupois", "habit", "have"; "safe", "save"; "trover", "troubadour", "trope". See U, F, etc.
• V : As a numeral, "V" stands for "five", in English and Latin.

Victory

W, w (W3)

W : the twenty-third letter of the English alphabet, is usually a consonant, but sometimes it is a vowel, forming the second element of certain diphthongs, as in "few", "how". It takes its written form and its name from the repetition of a "V", this being the original form of the Roman capital letter which we call "U".
Etymologically it is most related to "v" and "u". See V, and U. Some of the uneducated classes in England, especially in London, confuse "w" and "v", substituting the one for the other, as "weal" for "veal", and "veal" for "weal"; "wine" for "vine", and "vine" for "wine", etc. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 266-268.

w - double u (W3)

Why the "w" is called a "double u"
...
The 23rd letter of the English alphabet is called a "double u" because it was originally written that way in Old English.

As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, “When, in the 7th cent., the Latin alphabet was first applied to the writing of English, it became necessary to provide a symbol for the sound /w/, which did not exist in contemporary Latin.”

Latin once had an almost identical sound “originally expressed by the Roman "U" or "V" as a consonant-symbol”, the OED says, but “before the 7th cent. this Latin sound had developed into /v/.”

“The single "u" or "v" therefore could not without ambiguity be used to represent ("w"),” the dictionary explains, and so “the ordinary sign for /w/ was at first "uu".”

In any case, the "w" sound couldn’t have been represented by a double "v" because the letter "v" didn’t exist in Old English, where "f" represented an "f" or a "v" sound, depending on vocal stresses, according to the OED.

In early versions of “Cædmon’s Hymn,” which originated in the seventh century and is considered the oldest documented poem in Old English, "w" is written as "uu" in "uuldurfadur" ("glorious father") and "uundra" ("wonder").
...
Later in the eighth century, Oxford says, the "?" (or wynn), a character in the runic alphabet, began replacing the "uu", and the "?" eventually became the dominant letter representing the "w" sound in Old English.
...
In the meantime, according to the OED, “the "uu" was carried from England to the continent, being used for the sound /w/ in the German dialects, and in French proper names and other words of Germanic and Celtic origin.”

Then in the 11th century, Oxford says, the "w", a ligatured (that is, joined) form of "uu", was “introduced into England by Norman scribes, and gradually took the place of ?, which finally went out of use about a.d. 1300.”

Since then, the "uu" and and ? of “Caedmon’s Hymn” have often been transcribed with "w" (as in wuldorfæder and wundra). However, the terms are spelled with a uu or ? in all seventeen Old English examples we’ve examined.

Similarly, the letter "w" frequently appears in transcriptions of other Old English writing in which the letter was originally a "uu" or a ?. A common example is Beowulf, an epic poem that is believed to date from the early 8th century.

The oldest surviving Beowulf manuscript, which dates from around the year 1000, spells the hero’s name with a wynn: beo?ulf. Here’s its first appearance in the manuscript (Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f 132r at the British Library):

beowulf wæs breme (“beowulf was renowned”)

Getting back to the letter "w", we’ll let the OED have the last word: “The character "W" was probably very early regarded as a single letter, although it has never lost its original name of "double U". ”

w- - gu- (W3)

"Wardens" and "Guardians"

By Maeve Maddox
...
From 1066 until about 1250, English and French were spoken side by side in England. Then, because of political changes, the French-speaking ruling class shifted to English.

The words "warden" and "guardian" are good examples of the linguistic mingling that went on between the two languages at that time.

Old English had the verb "weardian" "to keep guard", and the noun "weard" "a guard", "a watchman", "a sentry".

Old French had the verb "guarder", "to guard".

Speakers of Norman French were people who had been Vikings a hundred years before William of Normandy invaded England in 1066. They brought their own distinctive pronunciations to French. One peculiarity was that Normans tended to pronounce the letter combination "gu-" as "w-".

For example, Old French "guarder", "to guard", became "warder" in Norman French. However, Parisian French kept the "gu-" spelling and pronunciation. As a result, English ended up with words derived from both forms.

The OED gives numerous meanings for the word "warden", including one that is identical to one of its definitions for "guardian". In general usage, however, a "guardian" is a "protector", while a "warden" is a "keeper".

A similar pair of words is "warranty" and "guarantee". Both words have the sense of an assurance that a certain standard of quality or integrity will be upheld.
...
A new car comes with a "warranty". If anything goes wrong with the car during a specified period, the "warranty" is a document that entitles the owner to have the problem corrected without charge.

The word "guarantee" is often used as a synonym for "warranty". However, a "guarantee" can be something more concrete.
...
Etymology nerds can have fun looking for modern French words beginning with "gu-" that correspond to English words beginning with "w-". For example:

"war"/"guerre": Old English "wyrre"; Norman French "werre"; Modern French "guerre".

And of course there’s "William the Conqueror" whom the French refer to as "Guillaume le Conquérant".

X, x (W3)

X : "X", the twenty-fourth letter of the English alphabet, has three sounds; a compound nonvocal sound (that of "ks"), as in "wax"; a compound vocal sound (that of "gz"), as in "example"; and, at the beginning of a word, a simple vocal sound (that of "z"), as in "xanthic". See Guide to Pronunciation, // 217, 270, 271.

Y, y (W3)

• Y : "Y", the twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet, at the beginning of a word or syllable, except when a prefix (see Y-), is usually a fricative vocal consonant; as a prefix, and usually in the middle or at the end of a syllable, it is a vowel. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 145, 178-9, 272.
• Y n.: Something shaped like the letter "Y"; a forked piece resembling in form the letter "Y".
• Y n.: One of the forked holders for supporting the telescope of a leveling instrument, or the axis of a theodolite; a wye.
• Y n.: A forked or bifurcated pipe fitting.
• Y n.: A portion of track consisting of two diverging tracks connected by a cross track.
• Y pron.: I.
• Y- : Alt. of I-
• Y- : A prefix of obscure meaning, originally used with verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and pronouns. In the Middle English period, it was little employed except with verbs, being chiefly used with past participles, though occasionally with the infinitive "Ycleped", or "yclept", is perhaps the only word not entirely obsolete which shows this use.

Z, z (W3)

Z : "Z", the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet, is a vocal consonant. It is taken from the Latin letter "Z", which came from the Greek alphabet, this having it from a Semitic source. The ultimate origin is probably Egyptian.
Etymologically, it is most closely related to "s", "y", and "j"; as in "glass", "glaze"; E. "yoke", Gr. /, L. "yugum"; E. "zealous", "jealous". See Guide to Pronunciation, // 273, 274.

Drucker, Johanna (Autor)
The Alphabetic Labyrinth
The Letters in History and Imagination

Kurzbeschreibung
The letters of the alphabet have been the source of some speculation since their invention almost 4000 years ago. Through research this text examines the many ways in which the letters of the alphabet have been used in political, spiritual and religious systems over two millennia. The book also presents the more general history of lettering, printing and calligraphy, as well as using colour illustrations to support the text. The book provides a source to historians studying art, culture or typography.

Flanders, Judith
A Place for Everything
The Curious History of Alphabetical Order

A Place For Everything

Few of us consider the order of the alphabet for long after we first learn it as children. Yet it is alphabetic order, its role in organization, that allows us to access centuries of thought, of knowledge, of poetry, literature, scientific discovery and discourse. Alphabetical order allows us to locate the information we need, and disseminate it further. Without alphabetical order, all the knowledge in the world would lie in great unsifted stacks of books, unfindable, unread, unknown.

A Place For Everything traces the beginnings of alphabetization, as we understand it, moving from the development of what was, in effect, a sixteenth-century proto-card catalogue, to a London bookseller who made a revolutionary breakthrough when he alphabetized his books, not by lumping all the ‘Thomases’ together (Thomas More, Thomas Smith, Thomas Elyot), but by ‘sirname’.

The alphabet itself is an ancient invention, yet alphabetical order was the organizing principle that ushered in, and made possible, the modern world. It may now be on its way out, as binary code replaces the need to know that O comes after N. It is long past time that this extraordinary development was celebrated.

A Place for Everything by Judith Flanders – the curious history of alphabetical order

We take it for granted, yet it plays a key role in our daily lives – the ABC and how it conquered the world
...
Writing has been invented independently at least three times in different parts of the world. The alphabet was invented only once – over 3,000 years ago, in Egypt’s Western desert, along a road used by traders and soldiers from across the Middle East. Sharing no mother tongue and communicating in a creole of their many languages, they found it easier to memorise 20 or 30 symbols and rearrange them into new words. The alphabet soon seemed as inevitable as that other human abstraction bequeathed to us by antiquity: money. Just as money was a stand-in for value, so the alphabet was a stand-in for meaning, separating words into letters for ease of reordering. This beautiful invention allows us to shape whole universes of meaning out of a small number of letters.

Alphabetical order, however, had a much longer and more circuitous road to dominance. A Place for Everything tells this complex and layered story. The alphabet has always been learned in a set order – but it was ages before this order was used for anything other than memorising the letters. Alphabetisation arrived piecemeal and for centuries remained one arrangement among many.

The Library of Alexandria, founded around 300BC, only used first-letter alphabetical order. Not until the Middle Ages did it occur to anyone to file Aristophanes before Aristotle. Even then, they did so halfheartedly. Monasteries, the location of most books in Europe at this time, had few holdings, so librarians themselves, rather than catalogues, served as their institutional memory. In the 13th century, Durham Cathedral Library, one of the largest, held just 352 books.

The slow rise of alphabetical order relied on many technologies coming together: the codex book (scrolls are fine for continuous reading, but rubbish for looking things up), pagination (rare in the earliest books) and the explosion of words that came with the arrival of paper and the printing press. Ultimately, Flanders suggests, the unstoppable democratisation of knowledge demanded alphabetical order. When the Word of God was contained only in churches and monasteries, there was little need for alphabetisation. But when mendicant preachers began crisscrossing Europe in the 12th century, they relied on handbooks such as Peter Lombard’s Sentences, which let them look for biblical keywords in the alphabetised index and construct ready-made sermons out of them.
...

Book review: A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order, by Judith Flanders
...
"A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order" by Judith Flanders tells the story of ‘how we moved from the arrival of the alphabet around 2000 BCE to the slow unfolding of alphabetical order as a sorting tool some three thousand years later’. It is a welcome exploration of an area that has received relatively little attention compared to the alphabet itself:

Ordering and sorting, and then returning to the material sorted via reference tools, have become so integral to the Western mindset that their significance is both almost incalculable and curiously invisible.
...
Iitially it was applied only to a word’s first letter. Not until centuries later was it extended beyond that, and here, too, different styles were applied: Konrad of Mure arranged the headwords in his 1273 encyclopedia Fabularius alphabetically up the second syllable – and then by the number of syllables.
...
To modern eyes, "deus" means "God"; it is also a Latin word, and it is in addition made up of four letters, "d-e-u-s", which are a linguistic construct, created by humans, that hold no inherent meaning or value. To Isidore of Seville, however, the word "deus", even spelled out on a page in his Etymologies, was indissoluble with the abstract idea the word represented. It took a shift in perception for medieval thinkers before locating "d-e-u-s" under "D", rather than at the head of the text, caused no profound sense of transgression.
...
The world was growing more organized, more bureaucratized, more reliant on paper, not merely physically, but mentally too. And with that new systematization came new ways to map the paper world, new ways to locate individual elements as and when needed. Customs, and even laws, incorporated these changes, and then came to rely on them.

Libraries play a major role, and their evolving styles of inventory and catalogue are brought vividly to life. We learn how great figures of science and the humanities liked to sort their vast notes: Erasmus, Pepys, Goethe, Leibniz (a librarian for much of his life who created ‘the first fully alphabetical [library] catalog in the German-speaking lands’). Robert Boyle tried myriad techniques: colour-coding, numerals, mnemonic verses, lettered boxes – but not, oddly, alphabetical order.

When encyclopedias began dropping the old hierarchies, some people feared ‘the atomization of knowledge that alphabetization might herald’. Coleridge, for one, was disturbed by the randomness of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to him now a ‘huge unconnected miscellany’. Flanders identifies a ‘fault line’ in intellectual circles, with the older system ‘designed by, and for, the learned’ being superseded by one that was more quickly and easily accessible by the general public.

There are fascinating excursions into the unfolding of related devices for organizing text, such as glosses, indexing, marginalia, cross-referencing, and page numbering. These are skilfully intertwined with condensed accounts of such topics as the origins of printing and the vogues for specialized furniture (e.g., the Wooton desk) and office accessories like the newsroom spindle or spike.

Alphabetical order reaches only so far, of course. Some writing systems do not use an alphabet, and even in the heavily alphabetized West, there are analphabetical holdouts such as Roget’s Thesaurus, whose internal logic intrigued me intensely as a child. The relentless spread of digitalization, meanwhile, produces systems that can be alphabetized with a click – or searched just as easily, bypassing the alphabet.
...

Houston, Keith - SC
Shady Characters
The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, & Other Typographical Marks

Punctuation is not a mere ornament or a curiosity — it is essential, and we need to know about it. Keith Houston’s history is en­tertaining and readable.
...

Trosborg, Anna (Herausgeber)
Pragmatics Across Languages and Cultures
(Handbooks of Pragmatics)

Kurzbeschreibung
This handbook provides a comprehensive overview, as well as breaking new ground, in a versatile and fast growing field. It contains 4 sections: Contrastive, Cross-cultural and Intercultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Teaching and Testing of Second/Foreign Language Pragmatics, and Pragmatics in Corporate Culture Communication, covering a wide range of topics, from speech acts and politeness issues to Lingua Franca and Corporate Crises Communication. The approach is theoretical, methodological as well as applied, with a focus on authentic, interactional data. All articles are written by renowned leading specialists, who provide in-depth, up-to-date overviews, and view new directions and visions for future research.

Über den Autor
Anna Trosborg, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

About this Title
covers topics such as international communication, intercultural politeness and impoliteness, intercultural business discourse, theoretical and methodological approaches to interlanguage pragmatics, speech acts in second/foreign languages and corporate culture communication introduces new and emergent fields, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Crisis Communication in a cross-cultural perspective includes more than 20 articles and a helpful subject index

Handbooks of Pragmatics
Ed. by Bublitz, Wolfram / Jucker, Andreas H. / Schneider, Klaus P.

This new landmark series of nine self-contained handbooks provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the entire field of pragmatics. It is based on a wide conception of pragmatics as the study of intentional human interaction in social and cultural contexts. The series reflects, appraises and structures a field that is exceptionally vast, unusually heterogeneous and still rapidly expanding. In-depth articles by leading experts from around the world discuss the foundations, major theories and most recent developments of pragmatics including philosophical, cognitive, sociocultural, contrastive and diachronic perspectives.

• - it will view pragmatics from both theoretical and applied perspectives;
• - it will be internationally oriented meeting the needs of the international pragmatic community;
• - it will be interdisciplinary including pragmatically relevant entries from adjacent fields such as philosophy, anthropology and sociology, neuroscience and psychology, semantics, grammar and text and discourse analysis;
• - it will provide reliable orientational overviews useful not only to researchers but also to students and teachers.

Wolfram Bublitz, University of Augsburg, Germany; Andreas H. Jucker, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Klaus P. Schneider, University of Bonn, Germany.

Flyer

• 9 - Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication (to be published December 2011) - Ed. by Herring, Susan / Stein, Dieter / Virtanen, Tuija
• 8 - Historical Pragmatics (2010) - Ed. by Jucker, Andreas H. / Taavitsainen, Irma
• 7 - Pragmatics across Languages and Cultures (2010) - Ed. by Trosborg, Anna
• 6 - Interpersonal Pragmatics (2010) - Ed. by Locher, Miriam A. / Graham, Sage L.
• 5 - Pragmatics of Society (to be published December 2011) - Ed. by Andersen, Gisle / Aijmer, Karin
• 4 - Cognitive Pragmatics (to be published December 2012) - Ed. by Schmid, Hans-Jörg
• 3 - Pragmatics of Discourse (to be published December 2012) - Ed. by Schneider, Klaus P. / Barron, Anne
• 2 - Pragmatics of Speech Actions (to be published December 2012) - Ed. by Sbisà, Marina / Turner, Ken
• 1 - Foundations of Pragmatics (2011) - Ed. by Bublitz, Wolfram / Norrick, Neal R.

Tschichold, Jan
The ampersand: its origin and development

The Ampersand Its origin and development
Autor: Jan Tschichold; Frederick Plaat
Verlag: London Woudhuysen 1957

Jan Tschichold (Born April 2, 1902 - Died August 11, 1974), Born in Leipzig, the son of a designer and painter of letters, Jan Tschichold was exposed early in childhood to the craft that became his life’s work. This first exposure to type notwithstanding, Tschichold studied to become an artist and took evening classes in calligraphy.
...

Jan Tschichold (2 April 1902 Leipzig, Germany - 11 August 1974 Locarno, Switzerland) (born as Johannes Tzschichhold, also Iwan Tschichold, Ivan Tschichold) was a calligrapher, typographer and a book designer. He designed posters, was a teacher and wrote books on typography.

He was one of the leaders of the movement Elementare Typografie or "Elementary Typography". Sometimes also referred to as "New Typography" of "Functional Typography". His most famous type font was Sabon.
...