Following in the tradition of Crate & Barrel and other businesses that include an ampersand in their names, the Hipster Business Name Generator offers fanciful names for trendy companies, such as Rainstorm & Egg or Peach & Creature. In the past, children reciting the alphabet were taught to include this pretzel-like symbol in the spot for the 27th letter, referring to it as and per se and, which eventually became ampersand. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Ampersands & Business Names”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Perhaps you’ve noticed a trend among some businesses to use an ampersand between two nouns, like crate and barrel. Or here in San Diego, we have a couple of wonderful restaurants, Cloak and Petal, and Soda and Swine. I was thinking about this because I had a few laughs yesterday when I stumbled across hipsterbusiness.name, which is on the web, and you can just keep hitting refresh, and it will generate all these business names that look perfectly plausible that have ampersands in the middle of two nouns. So like zebra and well, day and bucket, or anger and pearl, or rainstorm and egg. I would go to a place called rainstorm and egg.
Yeah, what do they sell there? Plumbing supplies?
I had a few laughs. It’s really fun to visit. But that sent me down a rabbit hole of reading about ampersands. And they are so cool.
Did you know that it used to be that they were regarded as sort of the 27th letter of the alphabet?
I did know that they used to be included on the, like when they were demonstrating scripts, they would often throw them on the ends, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, or you can find books from the 19th century, kids’ school books, you know, where they have all the 26 letters written out. And then the last thing on there that the kids would memorize was that little symbol at the very end. It was sort of more or less the 27th letter.
Then I was thinking, well, why is it called an ampersand? And that’s really cool, too. We’re talking about that squiggly symbol that looks sort of like a treble clef, right?
Right.
And it was pronounced and, but when the kids were reciting their ABCs, they would conclude with the words and, per se, and. That is per se meaning by itself from Latin. So and, per se, and. And that eventually became shortened to ampersand. How about that?
Because also when they were reciting the alphabet and they were reciting letters that could also be words like A or I, then they would say A per se A, meaning A itself, the letter itself.
Gotcha.
So and per se and became ampersand. How cool is that?
That’s very cool, yeah. But it’s got a long history, many centuries in the language, right? And you’re reminding me when I was in the second grade, somehow I had learned to use a plus sign instead of and, and I was told not to do it. I had learned it from my father because my father did that. So it was just a weird habit I picked up when I was in the second grade. And I still feel the sting of being told not to use the plus sign for and.
Oh, wow.
Now, was it a plus sign per se, or did it have that little loop between the two? Where the pencil or pen never quite leaves the paper?
I think it probably was more like that.
Yeah.
Yeah. Now you’re making me remember that moment when you learn that that’s a thing.
That’s a thing, yeah. That you can do that adults do.
Well, then you overuse it because you’re a kid.
Right.
Kids don’t have control. And, and, and, and.
We’d love to talk to you about anything related to language. How you write it, how you say it, how you read it, where it is, who says it, and why.
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