Why do people use two ampersands instead of one while writing online?

Question

I see it a lot nowadays, especially in teen sites like myspace and livejournal and the like. They'll write something along the lines of "i went to the mall with allison && katy today..." or "check out my new bra && panties". The double-ampersand trend is getting rather annoying. Besides programming and scripting, what logic do these people have to use two ampersands in the place of one? For that matter, why use an ampersand at all?

Answer 1

Good point. Also, the use of "txt" speech online (especially in e-mails) is highly annoying as well.

Answer 2

It's actually pronounced "and and," believe it or not. It may be an offshoot of the programming &&. Certainly trendy and seemingly needless.



Why use an ampersand at all? It's the clearest shorthand for "and" since "+" (the other obvious shorthand) means "plus" rather than "and."

Plus, "+" also has been used for dating and love relations for a long time, so "allison & katy" likely means something different from "allison + katy."

Answer 3

Good question and I agree that two seems like overkill.