Why I Can’t Write an Ampersand!

I’ve always written ugly ampersands and today I realized why!

Source: Englishclub

There are many styles of the ampersand, but I’m just talking about the simple one you see on your keyboard, &.

I write mine backwards. By that I mean, on a keyboard, mine would look like this,

When I actually write it by hand, it is not only backwards, it looks terrible. The one’s below were written slowly! The best one is in the upper middle. You don’t want to see my fast ones.

Mine written by hand

So, I googled for “how to write an ampersand” and spent about an hour trying to do it correctly. What? Am I back in second grade? I can’t do it. I filled up two sheets of paper with awful looking squiggles.

Here are a few that were not too bad. Some looked like a treble clef. Apparently I can’t even spell Treble Clef. Things are getting worse. Am I Benjamin Button?

These were written slowly. Heaven help me should I try to write one fast.

I’ve tried it two techniques of writing the ampersand. This technique does NOT work for me.

This technique works the best for me. Images by Wikihow (they have a wiki on this for ampersand impaired people like me?)

Well, at least I can practice now.

So I ask myself, why does mine look so bad and why is it backwards for crying out loud?

I think the problem comes from writing weird mathematical symbols for six years while becoming mathematician back in college.

Notice how some things are backwards or upside down.

Some symbols are backwards like the “∃” (there exists) or upside down like the “∀” (for every.)

But I think the lower-case delta (δ) may be the culprit.

But who knows. All I know is I have a side project now of re-learning how to write an ampersand.

Thanks for joining me on my new ampersand journey!