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This is bizarre but true: in older (and by that I mean largely pre-1900) English printed alphabets, the character & was printed at the end, and was memorized as a 27th character.

It was recited in the alphabet as "per se and", meaning "'and' by itself". So the end of the alphabet went "X, Y, Z, and per se and."

The phrase "and per se and" eventually got contracted - and is how we got today's name for the symbol: ampersand.

No, really: merriam-webster.com/dictionary

Definition of AMPERSANDwww.merriam-webster.com
Whitney Loblaw

@noelle why does this kind of story make me so happy??