People stunned after discovering there was a 27th letter in the alphabet

Learning the alphabet in school is a basic part of learning to talk, read and write, and everyone knows there are 26 letters to memorise.

But are there really only 26 of them?

I know you’re counting them right now, and I’ll save you the headache of having to go through each to count.

There are 26 letters in the alphabet that we know and love, but there might be a 27^th that was taken from the lineup at one point.

According to TikToker @zachdfilms3, there is some history about the alphabet we just weren’t privy to.

Previously, he’s gained traction online from dishing out little-known facts that blow people’s minds, such as why motorway signs are certain colours.

Now, he’s lifting the lid and sharing this weird insight.

He said in a recent clip that ‘ampersand is 27th letter.’

You might not know what that is but, it’s the ‘and’ sign which looks like this: &.

He explained: “This is an ampersand and believe it or not it used to be the 27th letter in the alphabet. You see back in the day this symbol came after the letter Z and signified the word 'and'."

He added: "But 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 which sounded something like this Q R S T U V W X Y Z &. And 'per se &' ampersand."

According to Brittanica, it was commonly used in the 19^th century until it was ultimately phased out.

The website states: “The term ampersand first appeared in the English language in 1835 and was used as a letter in its own right.

“It was taught as the 27th letter of the alphabet, after z, to 19th-century British students, who recited it as “and per se and,” owing to its stand-alone nature (Latin per se means “by itself”).”

But where did it even come from?

Now, this is pretty cool...

Dictionary.com describes how the Romans used to use the symbol of the ampersand around 1,500 years before the word was created, and it was all because they wrote E and T to signify ‘and’ when writing.

Because they wrote in cursive, slowly the E and T joined together which then created &.

And due to the symbol meaning ‘per se’ and students said, ‘and per se, and’ (and ‘by itself’, and) the words also meshed together to create ampersand.

The revelation shocked viewers, who believed that their entire world had turned upside down.

One user wrote: "Okay the ampersand one is actually pretty cool," as another chimed in with: "So what's why we say y AND z? Wow."

But others didn’t believe the reason and one person wrote: "That is NOT an ampersand, this is an 'and' symbol."

Did I not just explain the link above? Wow, I can’t go through it again- scroll back up to see why this person is wrong.

Anyway, it’s a cool fact nonetheless.