In recent weeks, the font nerds over at Hoefler & Frere-Jones have taken readers on an exciting adventure in kerning and answered their burning questions about the origins of the pilcrow.

This week, they recount the history of the ampersand, which stretches at least as far back as Pompeiian grafitti in 79 A.D.:

As both its function and form suggest, the ampersand is a written contraction of “et,” the Latin word for “and.” Its shape has evolved continuously since its introduction, and while some ampersands are still manifestly e-t ligatures, others merely hint at this origin, sometimes in very oblique ways. The many forms that a font’s ampersand can follow are generally informed by its historical context, the whims of its designer, and the demands of the type family that contains it.

…

As for the word “ampersand,” folk etymologies abound. The likeliest account, offered by the OED, is explained by early alphabet primers in which the symbol was listed after X, Y, Z as “&: per se, and.” Meaning “&: in itself, ‘and’”, and inevitably pronounced as “and per se and”, it’s a quick corruption to “ampersand,” and the rest is history. Though I do like one competing explanation offered by a retired signpainter I once met, who insisted that the symbol got its name from its inventor, and was henceforth known to the trade as Amper’s And. This Mr. Amper has never surfaced, nor have any of his contemporaries who lent their names to competing models; I would have liked to see Quick’s And, on which this tale is surely built.

From The Globe and Mail:

A 17-year-old student has been expelled from his Brampton, Ont., high school for a fictional essay he submitted in a creative writing class about a disgruntled student who murders one of her teachers.

Brendan Jones, a Grade 12 student at Heart Lake Secondary School northwest of Toronto, was expelled last week, leaving him facing an uncertain future. Brendan is just three credits shy of graduating from high school and was hoping to study criminology at university next fall. But it is not at all clear whether he will be able to transfer to another high school in the province.

[…]
The five-page, handwritten essay, entitled “School’s Out,” is narrated by an unnamed Grade 10 student who stresses that she likes all of her teachers with the notable exception of Mr. Adams, who teaches science and has an “intoxicating odor.” The controversial part of the story happens near the end when the student manages to trap the teacher in the basement of her house, picks up a bat and gives him “some final words.” It ends ominously with: “Sorry, Mr. Adams, but schools [sic] out!”

Brendan said in an interview that he never imagined the essay would provoke such a reaction. He said there is nothing gory in it and the characters are fictitious. He has also written a letter of apology to both the school and the Peel Board of Education.

As if this weren’t strange enough, here’s the kicker:

The essay is sprinkled with comments from the creative writing teacher, including “show, don’t tell,” and “cliché.” But by the time the teacher got to the end of the essay, alarm bells appear to have gone off. She scrawled “inappropriate subject matter!” but she also tells him to work on his sentence structure and dialogue. There is no grade on the essay.

[Emphasis added.]

Bethany Keeley, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, has spent the last few years becoming a bit of an expert on wayward quotation marks. Her excellent website, The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, features snapshots – taken by her or by one of her many correspondents – of the most flagrant public misuses. Today’s posting, for instance, features a notice from an office worker asking coworkers to put “dirty” dishes in the dishwasher, and telling them that the dishwasher will be “turned on” at 5 p.m.

Other highlights: a restaurant advertising a “hot ham” sandwich; a country fair promoting “fresh” cashews; and a sign welcoming “President” Bush to town.