1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampersand

AMPERSAND (a corruption of the mixed English and Latin phrase, “and per se and,” of which there are many dialect forms, as “ampussyand,” or “amperseand”), the name of the sign 🙲 or &, which is a combination of the letters e, t, of the Lat. et＝and. The sign is now usually called “short and.” In old-fashioned primers and nursery books the name and sign were always added at the end of the alphabet.