The ampersand (&) originated with Roman scribes around the 1st century AD who sought to write more efficiently. They created a ligature by combining the letters "e" and "t" from the Latin word "et," which means "and." This practice was a feature of evolving Roman cursive scripts. The symbol became particularly common in medieval monastic scriptoria, where monks copying manuscripts used it to streamline their laborious work on expensive parchment. The name itself is a more recent invention. In 19

28K views · 2K reactions | September 8th is World Ampersand Day! Today honors the ampersand or “&” for its role in written language. The “&” symbol is a ligature for “et,” which is Latin for “and.” In this video, Howard letterpress prints several different wood type ampersands from a type case that we keep on display in our print shop. #WorldAmpersandDay #ampersand #typography #printmaking #printing #sacramento #sachistorymuseum | Sacramento History Museum | Facebook

September 8th is World Ampersand Day! Today honors the ampersand or “&” for its role in written language. The “&” symbol is a ligature for “et,” which is Latin for “and.” For today, Howard letterpress printed five different wood type ampersands in our print shop ranging from 6 line pica to 30 line pica in size. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #WorldAmpersandDay #ampersand #typography #museum #& #sacramento #history #letterpress #printingpress #printin