Believe it or not (and trust me, I had a hard time believing this one), there really is a 27th letter of the alphabet – or there used to be. TikTok user @zachdfilms3 blew our collective minds when he posted a seemingly innocuous TikTok explaining that humanity did, in fact, used to have a 27th letter in our alphabet. And guess what? You already know it!
He’s amassed over 80,000 followers on the popular (and addicting) platform posting short-form content centered around small facts he finds around the internet. He usually includes a few per video, with the alphabet factoid actually at the end of a video about road signs, of all things.
According to Zach, it’s an ampersand! Yup, that familiar “&” used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet, following the letter “z.” The ampersand is one of those funny words that English has squished and twisted through time, originally conceived as an amalgamation of “e” and “t” in Latin. This became “et,” aka “and.”
Students used to add it to the end of the alphabet.
[…] when reciting the alphabet, students weren’t allowed to just say ‘and’ after ‘z.’ Instead, they were taught to differentiate the symbol by saying ‘per se’ before it. It sounded something like this: ‘QRSTUVWXYZ and per se &.’ Ampersand.
I know this one is hard to believe, but it really is true! Up until the 17th century, the ampersand was included as the last letter of the alphabet. The symbol and its name is an example of “Rebracketing,” as explained by writer Jon Hudson. The words “and per se and” eventually slurred together to form a new word: ampersand.
And, because it’s TikTok, quickly started either a) incorrectly “correcting” Zach, or b) sharing the most random facts about the ampersand that they could pull out of their brains. I love the internet so much. One user said:
My dad, if my sister was a boy, was gonna name her Ampersand.
I think we have to re-open the schools, guys. I’m worried the younger generation isn’t learning extremely basic names for common symbols. Google is free, kids! Use it!
Still others had some notes about our modern alphabet.
A number of people were displeased that the “&” came after “z,” explaining that they find the arrangement pretty inefficient.
Should’ve put & before Z and after Y.
We do in fact do that in modern English, we just don’t could the “and” as a letter anymore! The evolution of language is absolutely fascinating, isn’t it? (I’m worried about everyone’s literacy in this comment section.)
Thankfully, at least some knew what they were talking about.
When one user commented assuming that the “&” is the reason we say “and z,” another was quick to correct them. You gotta love a casual fact-check in a comment section. It’s good for the soul!
You now know the official (and then unofficial) 27th letter of the alphabet. Things like this actually do make the internet a fun place to be, in all seriousness. Social media can be a really weird place, but our ability to learn whatever we want, whenever we want with just a scroll of our thumbs is a very cool privilege to have. I bet those 17th century kids would be jealous.
Not to be a huge nerd, but I love learning about everyone’s random fun facts they know. If you have any alphabet lore you want to drop, comment them below and we can all learn some new things together!
