You know your alphabet, yes you do, all twenty six letters you say by rote. Few know there once was Twenty- seven, one more of which you should take note. It is the humble Ampersand; the character you see today Used mostly as a linkage between two corporate proper names. It does mean “and” it always did; its shape from Latin is derived. Its name is a type of Mondegreen, by pronouncement it is described. Back in Elizabethan time when schoolboys said their alphabet They did not end with “X.Y.Z” but with “and per se &” The Roman “Et” was anglicized and its usage codified.
In Elizabethan times the ampersand was the 27th letter. Today it must feel like the planet formerly known as Pluto