ampersand
10 years ago No Comments

(pronounced AM-per-sand)

We have discovered that many interior design related student organizations are coming together on their respective campuses under the umbrella of one name. One of the common ones we have heard is “Ampersand”. Therefore, we thought it fitting to include this entry, which we have taken directly from World Wide Words, our favorite word-obsessed website:

“This name for the character ‘&’ is surprisingly recent, not being known before the nineteenth 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’.” To read more, go directly to Issue 637 of World Wide Words.

EXAMPLE: PLiNTH & CHiNTZ, along with several other design-oriented enterprises, uses an ampersand as part of its name and logo.