The Stories Behind Our Words

The English language is exceptionally diverse, far more so than any other language ever developed. For one thing, it is extremely verbose, over 1 million words (the next closest is Chinese, with 550,000). For another, it is relatively young as languages go and is still developing. But the primary reason has to do with the fact that English-speakers love to borrow new words.

Even when they can't pronounce them.

Even when they can't spell them.

Part five in the ongoing saga of our English language, with new words and more zany origins.

Ampersand: The single character meaning "and" (&)

In early schools, children were taught letters, numbers and symbology by rote, chanting the series in chorus. In the late 1700's, the chant was developed to include the three most common symbols of the day, the "and" symbol (&), the "at" symbol (@) and the "per centum" symbol (%). All three were commonly used in trade documents of the time and it was considered necessary that all learned children should have at least a rudimentary understanding of the marks. The chant was simple: Starting with the first letter of the alphabet, the children would chant the letters in order, separating each letter with the word "and;" thus "A and B and C and D..." When the children would reach the symbols, they would use the Latin phrase per se, that is, "in essence." Thus the & symbol was chanted as "and, per se, 'and.' " Over the years, and with countless repetitions of the chant, the phrase was elided to our current "ampersand." Similar overuse led to the ampersat (@) and the "percent" symbol as short for the Latin per centum "per 100."

Bonfire: An extremely large fire