The Missing Letter of the English Alphabet
Before the Second World War, King George journaled the end of Neville Chamberlain’s term as prime minister:
“I accepted his resignation, & told him how grossly unfairly I thought he had been treated, & that I was terribly sorry that all this controversy had happened. … I sent for Winston & asked him to form a Government. This he accepted & told me he had not thought this was the reason for my having sent for him.”
Five ampersands! In three sentences! Written by a king! Of England!
I was excited by this grammar. I wondered why an abbreviation for the?fifth most popular word in the English language ?doesn’t grace every text, email, and book today, as it did then.
Time for a Wikipedia journey. In the mid-1800s, “&” served as the?27th letter of the English language .
But when the author of the now-ubiquitous ditty “ABCDEFG” sought to rhyme “Now I know my ABCs,” Z usurped “&”. After all, what rhymes with ampersand?
Over time, “&” fell from its regal perch as a letter.
But I think it’s time for a comeback. I’m replacing the three keystrokes “a-n-d” with “&” in emails and blog posts.
A pyrrhic productivity win or an homage to the Queen’s English?
It’s not an either/or.
It’s an &.
Bachelor of Commerce - BCom from Nizam College at Hyderabad Public School
2 年????
Mathematics Teacher | Education
2 年Tomasz Tunguz, I love this post! Thanks for this linguistic eye opener. I will share it & use it to support my writing, at times!
Investment Manager at ACC New Zealand
2 年When I saw this post, at first I thought you would be referring to the “thorn” letter which represents the “th” sound. Another worthy candidate for reinclusion IMO.
Founder Business Advisor Trainee Aviator Passionate Kiwi
2 年& me also :)
Co-founder, Author, Practitioner- Business Agility, Digital Marketing & Digital Transformation, AI adventurer, Strategist, M&A PE advisor
2 年Ampersands are the coolest character of the alphabet. They're the next hashtag &ersand NB. Not really, the story of the hashtag is also pretty impressive https://www.google.com/amp/s/buffer.com/resources/a-concise-history-of-twitter-hashtags-and-how-you-should-use-them-properly/amp/ Thanks to https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/factoryjoe