> In the alphabet recited by nineteenth-century schoolchildren, it followed Z. 'And per se and', they would say, 'and per se and'. A logogram masquerading as a letter, a letter that is also a word—like a and I and even o, but no—a letter that is only a word, the plainest word of all. A word we could do without, to be honest, if we had to. We don’t have to, and thank the language gods for that.
A logogram is only a word or phrase. How could we do without 'and'? How is 'and' the plainest word of all? This is like a bad impression of Douglas Adams or something.
Many languages lack an equivalent of "and". What you do is to just juxtapose the two concepts, or perhaps you have structural redundancies in the grammar.
Honestly, we could just use commas: After some discussion back, forth; we decided to get fish, chips. Then we droned on, on about this, that.
I can't think of a sentence that can't be rephrased to avoid "and" (usually resulting in something that sounds less elegant, admittedly). For lists, it's helpful but optional. Sometimes you can make do with "with" instead. Compound sentences with "and" can be split up.
> In the alphabet recited by nineteenth-century schoolchildren, it followed Z. 'And per se and', they would say, 'and per se and'. A logogram masquerading as a letter, a letter that is also a word—like a and I and even o, but no—a letter that is only a word, the plainest word of all. A word we could do without, to be honest, if we had to. We don’t have to, and thank the language gods for that.
A logogram is only a word or phrase. How could we do without 'and'? How is 'and' the plainest word of all? This is like a bad impression of Douglas Adams or something.