Interesting backstory of harmless "&"

That's nothing compared to Shady Character's article on it[1] (if anything, this feels more like a summary <i>of it</i>).<p>[1] <a href="http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/06/the-ampersand-part-1-of-2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/06/the-ampersand-part-...</a>

This is one of those stories that <i>sounds</i> suspiciously like urban legend bullshit, but upon further investigation, is actually true. Huh.<p>Most surprisingly, Italian borrowed the word "ampersand" as-is from English. German uses the more sensible "Et-Zeichen" ("et sign/character"), though.