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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Ampersand

Image found on Google Images, no credits given

My 6-year-old was reading a book to himself the other day when he stopped and said, "Mommy, what's this?"  I looked where he was pointing, then explained that it was an ampersand [am-per-sand], the symbol for the word and.

The ampersand is often used in names of businesses:

Ben & Jerry's

book or movie titles:

Owen & Mzee

and when addressing a couple:

Mr. & Mrs. Jones
Grandma & Grandpa

The ampersand is rarely used in sentences -- except, perhaps, on Facebook statuses and Twitter messages.  However, sometimes it is used to indicate the "and" in a listed item's name, distinguishing it from a separating "and":

For lunch, I had an apple, some chips,
a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and milk.

Can you think of any other ways that you've seen the ampersand used?


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