https://www.englishclub.com/efl/podcasts/interesting-facts/a...
At the end of the alphabet, students would say “X,Y,Z and, per se, & (and)”.
> Up until as recently as the mid 1900s, it was standard practice when reciting the alphabet to use the Latin phrase per se (literally “by itself”) to differentiate between individual letters of the alphabet—like A, I, and O—and single-character homographic words—like a, I and O.
> So the letter A would be read as “A per se A”, to ensure it was distinguished from the indefinite article a. The letter I, similarly, would be “I per se I” to differentiate it from the pronoun I. And the letter O would be “O per se O” to differentiate it from the interjection O!
[0] http://haggardhawksblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/ampersand.html
Maybe it’s you who is missing what’s going on.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-ampersand
& was named ampersand in the context of rattling off the letters of the alphabet in English: “double-you ex wye izzard/zed, and”.
“… And what?”
“And, on its own, and” (and, per se, and).
With “and” named in English, because this was an English rattling off of the alphabet.
Yes, specificially this article: http://haggardhawksblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/ampersand.html