Re: French Ampersand

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristan McLeay" <zsau@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 6:45 AM
Subject: French Ampersand


> Reading <http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl-symbols.htm>, I was
> told that the French name for & is 'une esperluette, un et commercial, un
> et anglais'. The last one means 'an English and', doesn't it? How come
> they call it that? I thought we stole it from the French? Do the French
> not like ampersands or something?
>
> Tristan.
>
Although I like the words "esperluète" and "perluète" and I use them as
often as possible, they are quite unknown in present French (I found them a
ten of years ago looking for a translation of "ampersand" in an
English-French dictionary). They also exist with the ending "-ette". I saw
in a pre WWII dictionary that "pirlouète" has been used too.

I think "et commercial" is more likely to be understood by analogy with the
"a commercial" (@, arobase).

I don't remember I ever heard the expression "et anglais" to refer to the
ampersand but of course that doesn't mean it's never used by anybody.

--
Jean-François Colson
jfcolson@belgacom.net