Ampersand is really not dead - I use it quite regularly. I always sign cards from me and the wife as x & y. It is shift 7 on a en_GB keyboard
English also used to have the letter thorne. It looks quite a lot like a Y or y and leads to the notion that "Ye olde shoppe" is NOT pronounced as "the old shop". Here the the would probably have a long e so "thee". Modern thornes look more like a d - see Icelandic for example. See wikipedia for the full run down.
I still see r written as a sort of squiggly mess rotated 45 degrees. Mostly by the generation before mine (I'm 53). A lowercase s used to be written looking like f with the crossbar missing.
I suspect the kids might have said: "et per se and" or "ut ..." and then that collapsed into "and per se and" -> ampers& (yes I have seen that monstrosity used in anger)!
Þorn was Þ (lowercase þ), þhough þe usual handwriting style gradually brought þe shape closer to y.
When printing presses were imported from continental Europe, þey didn't have þis letter, so þe letter y was used as a substitute.
Eð is Ð/ð, which has ðe same sound. Ðorn derives from runes, eð from Roman script. Eð is still used in Icelandic and Faroese.
I ðink English would benefit from a few more letters, alðough ðis one isn't ðe most useful. Æ or Ø, or accents on vowels, would be more useful for spelling and pronunciation.
"Thomas" is ðe only word I can ðink of with a TH ðat wouldn't be a þorn.
English also used to have the letter thorne. It looks quite a lot like a Y or y and leads to the notion that "Ye olde shoppe" is NOT pronounced as "the old shop". Here the the would probably have a long e so "thee". Modern thornes look more like a d - see Icelandic for example. See wikipedia for the full run down.
I still see r written as a sort of squiggly mess rotated 45 degrees. Mostly by the generation before mine (I'm 53). A lowercase s used to be written looking like f with the crossbar missing.
I suspect the kids might have said: "et per se and" or "ut ..." and then that collapsed into "and per se and" -> ampers& (yes I have seen that monstrosity used in anger)!