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| | Adobe Fonts - Type topics: The ampersand |
 | | The term ampersand, as Geoffrey Glaister writes in his "Glossary of the Book," is a corruption of and (and) per se and, which literally means "(the character) and by itself (is the word) and." The symbol and is derived from the ligature of ET or et, which is the Latin word for "and." |
 | | While the connection between the capital letters E and T was initially formed by writing quickly, later calligraphic manuscripts show the middle part of the E, consisting of semicircles, joined to the T by a more intentional, flowing horizontal line. |
 | | Depending on the writing speed or the calligrapher's concern for perfection, from the eighth century on, the combination of the letters E and T resembled the ligature that was adopted with the invention of printing in the early 15th century (fig. |
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