Cancer 2.0: The Sequel

The ampersand, meaning "and", comes in many forms, depending on the font. I was surprised by how it looks in the font used for the title on this blog.

As a kid I often found myself lost in my dictionary, looking up words used to define words, always amazed at both the history and the real meanings of words.  With the exception of words we learned in vocabulary lessons, definitions and meaning are absorbed by context.  We learn the words without ever thinking about them.

Oh no, now I have to go check whether I’m using absorbed right. Is it absorbed or adsorbed?

Absorb  =To soak up, suck in, swallow.  To take in. The idea here is to take something into the interior.  Sample sentence “The sponge absorbed the spill.”

Adsorb = To attract and bind a fluid or gas on the surface of a solid. Accumulate (liquids or gases) on the surface, often only one molecule thick.   Think of the layer of water drops that magically appear on your beverage glass on a hot day.  Sample sentence “I cannot see any difference in the baking soda in my refrigerator after it adsorbed smell of the stinky cheese. ”

Oops, back to my topic about the ampersand.  This character was the 27th letter in the alphabet back in ancient Latin and continued in some English dictionaries as late as the 1880’s. The ampersand was even seen in Pompeiian graffiti.  Some medieval scribes used a symbol that looked like of like the numeral 7 in place of the word “and”.   Since the ampersand  was the last item in the alphabet, “&” had also taken on the slang meaning of “posterior, rear end, hindquarters.”

The word “ampersand” did not even exist before the early 1800’s. The “&” symbol was named “and.”     During all that time, when people recited the alphabet, they said the usual “A B C D … X Y Z per se and.”   Over time the meaning of the Latin was lost and people began saying “…X Y Z and per se and.”

What’s with the “per se”?  This goes back to Latin origins, where “per se” means “by itself” and seemed to continue when the alphabet was taught in English.   In the early 1800’s, dictionaries appeared calling the symbol “ampersand”  which matched what people actually said.

The symbol Chi-Ro, also called labarum, has been used to denote Christ. This was the symbol Emperor Constintine saw in his famous dream.

And what about all the objections to the “X” in Xmas as a short form of Christmas?  In Greek, “X” is pronounced “chi” and back then a symbol often used to for “Christ”.

Sources: The Hot Word  and  The American Heritage Dictionary