The Ampersand

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Seth
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Seth »

Shade wrote:I can just turn that around and say that just because they have a purpose does not make them useful.
& is the symbol on my 6 key. I don't care what it's called, even though I do occassionally [sic] use it.
occasionally*
¶ & is considerably useful because of its recognisability as well as being less chronophagous to write alongst with consuming less writing space. Could ye please explain why ligatures are not useful to us?
Shade wrote:You have to memorize fewer different symbols. This is especially convenient when you remove symbols that are essentially duplicates of others (the same way "&" is just a different way to express "and").

¶ What if some people find it easier to remembre ‘and’ as ‘that word that only consists of one symbol’? & has few purposes; it also shortens; I think ye will agree short things are less difficult to remembre.
Shade wrote:Also, if you deem it necessary to go out of your way to mark mistakes in what I wrote, would you at least have the gentleness to point out what they are?

simplicity*
Shade wrote:Maybe because Japan is an extremely powerful nation with lots of inhabitants?
Maybe because a lot of people like anime and manga, which happen to be Japanese most of the time and not always receive an English translation?
How would I know? I considered learning it as well, but I'm not gonna bother learning thousands of foreign symbols just for that.
¶ Why would ye bother learning thousands of words for that matter? How would learning thousands of symbols be any more difficult?
Shade wrote:How would I know?
¶ Ye seem to know why ’twas disused, so it may follow that ye know why ’twas used to begin with. Is that irrational to præsume?
Shade wrote:It's a duplicate symbol for something that can already be expressed with different symbols exactly the same. It's unnecessary.
Besides, I take exactly the same amount of time to hit Shift+6 for & as for typing out "and" (or "und" in German). It's similar for my handwriting. In conclusion, I don't see how it takes less effort.
¶ ‘and’ as well as ‘und’ requires three key‐strokes, whereas ‘&’ requires two. I am rather caught off‐guard that ye can draw one symbol as quickly as three, but I certainly can not.
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Shade »

Seth wrote:occasionally*
Thanks.
Seth wrote:& is considerably useful because of its recognisability as well as being less chronophagous to write alongst with consuming less writing space. Could ye please explain why ligatures are not useful to us?
I don't know about you, but I find "and" to be just as recognizable. I don't know what "chronophagous" means, and writing space is only rarely an issue. Of course, if it is, go ahead and use it.
As for other ligatures... they mostly just look exactly the same as the two letters they represent, only without a space between them, which looks quite ugly in my opinion.
Seth wrote:What if some people find it easier to remembre ‘and’ as ‘that word that only consists of one symbol’? & has few purposes; it also shortens; I think ye will agree short things are less difficult to remembre.
"and" is very short to begin with, but yes, short things are less difficult to remember (usually). The difference is that you can form thousands of other words using "a", "n" and "d", whereas & cannot be used for representing anything other than the very specific word "and".
Seth wrote:simplicity*
Oh. Not sure how I got that first i mixed up with an y.
Seth wrote:Why would ye bother learning thousands of words for that matter?
If you want an honest answer... ...only because it's necessary to speak a different language, and this only applies to languages that I'm actually interested in. I'd never bother trying to learn Spanish, for example.
It'd be much more convenient if the whole world spoke the same language.
Seth wrote:How would learning thousands of symbols be any more difficult?
Symbols on their own don't mean anything. That, and if you were to represent each word with its own symbol, you'd not be done after learning thousands of symbols. You'd need tens and hundreds of thousands of symbols.
Seth wrote:Ye seem to know why ’twas disused, so it may follow that ye know why ’twas used to begin with. Is that irrational to præsume?
I told you one of the obvious reasons for it. Never did I claim to know the other possible reasons.
Besides, no, knowing the reason for its disuse does not mean to also know the reason for its invention. That is an irrational assumption to make.
Seth wrote:‘and’ as well as ‘und’ requires three key‐strokes, whereas ‘&’ requires two. I am rather caught off‐guard that ye can draw one symbol as quickly as three, but I certainly can not.
I need to keep Shift pressed with a finger and then hit the 6 key to write "&", whereas I can hit the letters for "and" very easily using my left fingers for "a" and "d" and hitting the "n" with my right index finger with practically no time passing in-between. 6 isn't a key I hit very often, which is (probably) why it's slightly above the area of the more commonly used letters where it requires a little more time to be hit.
As for the handwriting, "&" is a rather complex symbol, whereas "a", "n" and "d" are all simple in comparison. Obviously the former will take much longer to draw than the latter.
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by woodmouse »

I agree with Shade, at least mostly. Even though using & and other things like that is technically useless, it can have its purpose under certain circumstances, like for example when writing a book or something like that, to make something seem more 'intelligent', but when used like you use it, seems just a bit unnecessary and pretentious; sometimes can make simple sentences completely non-understandable.
The difference, in my opinion, is that on forums it's more acceptable to use correct punctuation and things like that, so it's only natural someone takes it beyond that. Anyway, from what I've noticed, even typing "Hello." causes anger in some chats. They reply with "plz dont use fagspeech" or something similar to that. I can't even imagine what those people would react to something that isn't even widely used anymore. Even though it's not a reason to stop doing so, but if it causes people to think of you as someone to stay away from, then it kind of might change; sometimes using half-correct punctuation makes people in chats think of me as a 50 year old pedophile. Those same people would probably think of you (Seth) as something extremely incomprehensible and threatening.

Also, about hard languages being used... finnish is a hard language to learn. I speak it naturally, since I'm finnish. The hardest part of the language is the declension, since there can technically be new words every day and more than one way to say something.

For example, adding "-mäinen" or "-mainen" to a word's end makes it mean "X-like". So, when "äiti" means mother, "äitimäinen" means "mother-like", even though the 'correct' way to say it would be "äidillinen", which technically isn't even the exact same, but more if it'd be used in a sentence like "X on äidillinen ihminen" it would mean "X is a mother-like person/X is a person who has a mother", it would technically refer to the other person, even if it's used to mean the mother. But using "äitimäinen" would make "X on äitimäinen ihminen" mean "X is a mother-like person" and it wouldn't necessarily be literal (neither would the other one, though) but it absolutely refers to the mother, or person who resembles a mother.

So... technically, in finnish the exact same things can be said in a 'simpler' way, as in "forcing the word to be taken literally", but no one would understand it as such. Same thing in english, as far as I know.

Even though I just missed the point completely, but you still know what I mean.

PS: "chronophagous" means "time-consuming". Apparently Seth thought it has fewer letters and is as such easier and faster to type, but since some of the letters are differently positioned on the keyboard, and it's impossible to rapidly press C, H, R, O in row the same way it is to T, I, M, E, it kinda makes me disagree. But well.
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Seth
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Seth »

Shade wrote:I don't know about you, but I find "and" to be just as recognizable. I don't know what "chronophagous" means, and writing space is only rarely an issue. Of course, if it is, go ahead and use it.
As for other ligatures... they mostly just look exactly the same as the two letters they represent, only without a space between them, which looks quite ugly in my opinion.
¶ Ah, but sir, but ‘&’ is utilized across multiple languages. That is why I meant it was recognisable. Surely ye could agree that numerals (1, 2, 3) are easier than their names (one, two, three) to recognize. ¶ ‘Chronophagous’ is admittedly a rare term. Woodmouse already explain’d the meaning for me (thanks). Æsthetically, I find ligatures to be fascinating, but I do desire to argue with you about it.
Shade wrote:"and" is very short to begin with, but yes, short things are less difficult to remember (usually). The difference is that you can form thousands of other words using "a", "n" and "d", whereas & cannot be used for representing anything other than the very specific word "and".
¶ It can also be utilised to repræsent the term ‘et’; etc. is sometimes written as &c. (as I mention’d).
Shade wrote:Symbols on their own don't mean anything. That, and if you were to represent each word with its own symbol, you'd not be done after learning thousands of symbols. You'd need tens and hundreds of thousands of symbols.
Fair point then.
Shade wrote:I told you one of the obvious reasons for it. Never did I claim to know the other possible reasons.
Besides, no, knowing the reason for its disuse does not mean to also know the reason for its invention. That is an irrational assumption to make.
¶ I apologize. I did not intend that ye must have known other reasons. Still, if the ampersand is not as useful as ye think, it begs the quæstion as to why it was invented in the first place, not to mention popular for centuries.
Shade wrote:As for the handwriting, "&" is a rather complex symbol, whereas "a", "n" and "d" are all simple in comparison. Obviously the former will take much longer to draw than the latter.
¶ I think it depends on how it is executed. Some people draw it as an E with vertical lines below as well as above it. Others draw it as Et. I draw it similar to the numbre 8 starting from the downward point then making a loop down as well as another loop upward, then I stop.
¶ Anyway, I hope ye are not taking this hostilely. I was not expect to get into a conflict with somebody over a symbol I like, but so long as ye do not have a probleme with me using &, then we do not have to argue.
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Shade
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Shade »

Seth wrote:Ah, but sir, but ‘&’ is utilized across multiple languages. That is why I meant it was recognisable. Surely ye could agree that numerals (1, 2, 3) are easier than their names (one, two, three) to recognize. ¶ ‘Chronophagous’ is admittedly a rare term. Woodmouse already explain’d the meaning for me (thanks). Æsthetically, I find ligatures to be fascinating, but I do desire to argue with you about it.
Fair point, but even so, "&" only has one (or very few) meaning(s), even if it is equally recognized in different languages. Using "normal" (for lack of a better word) letters to write the equivalent word requires knowing the word in the language you want to write it in, but it doesn't invalidate the fact that those same letters can be used to construct a lot of other words as well.
Seth wrote:It can also be utilised to repræsent the term ‘et’; etc. is sometimes written as &c. (as I mention’d).
Okay, but my point stays the same.
Seth wrote:I apologize. I did not intend that ye must have known other reasons. Still, if the ampersand is not as useful as ye think, it begs the quæstion as to why it was invented in the first place, not to mention popular for centuries.
Maybe. However, that's not something I can answer. Do keep in mind, however, that languages, spoken as well as written, are always evolving.
Seth wrote:Anyway, I hope ye are not taking this hostilely. I was not expect to get into a conflict with somebody over a symbol I like, but so long as ye do not have a probleme with me using &, then we do not have to argue.
Not at all. Use it all you like, I don't mind.
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Maxaxle »

Cimeries wrote:The 'euro' ampersand looks better IMO.
OMGWTFBBQ! It changed to a European-style one when I browsed away from the page!
Here's a picture of the U.S. one (the one on the left):
Image
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Seth »

¶ The appearaunce of ‘&’ is considerably différent in italicks. As:
Image
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Agent of Dread »

&
Aww, it doesn't work. :(
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Seth
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Re: The Ampersand

Post by Seth »

Agent of Dread wrote:&
Aww, it doesn't work.
¶ I should have mentioned that it varies from font to font. Try looking some out here: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/26/fontsupport.htm.
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Re: The Ampersand

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These are the fonts that this forum uses for posts: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif (taken directly from the CSS document)
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