Ampersands: Pretty but Distracting, a guest post by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Now celebrating the 3rd edition of her award-winningest book, The Frugal Editor

Have you noticed how ampersands turn to gibberish when they are entered into some blog services like Google’s blogpsot.com? That is only the beginning of problems ampersands cause for editors and publishers of all kinds. Many of the difficulties go unnoticed, except by the publishing pros we authors would like to impress. They are people like agents, librarians, bookstore event directors, and the acquisition editors at Knopf.

That’s why I added a new section to the third edition of the winningest book in the newly released third edition of my #HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. Because ampersands seem to be so popular these days, it is especially important for editors and authors who publish books to know a little about their history, how to use them, and how gatekeepers and readers of Lynn Truss’s famous zero-tolerance approach to grammar might view them. So, I thought I’d share this excerpt from the new edition of The Frugal Editor with you today, even though it’s only one tiny part of presenting ourselves and our books in the most professional light possible.

Ampersands: Pretty is as Pretty Does

The ampersand is a real pretty little dude, but it isn’t a letter nor even a word. It’s a logogram that represents a word. Its history goes back to antiquity, but interesting history and being cute are no reason to overuse it in the interest of trying to separate one’s writing from the pack. It is better for writers to concentrate on the techniques that make a difference rather than gimmicks that distract. Here are some legitimate uses for the ampersand:

• The Writers Guild of America uses the ampersand to indicate a close collaboration with a writing (or other) partner—closer than a situation in which one writer is brought in to rewrite or fix the work of another. For those in the know, it is a convenient way to subtly indicate that one writer has not been hired to rewrite or fix the mistakes of another.
• Newspapers, journals, and others choose to use ampersands when they are citing sources. That’s their style choice, not a grammar rule. In similar citings, most (if not all) of academia expects the word and to be spelled out.

Tip: Here is a style guide from the point of view of academia

• Occasionally the term etc. is abbreviated to &c, though I can see no reason for confusing a reader with this. Etc. is already an abbreviation of et cetera and the ampersand version saves but one letter and isn’t commonly recognized.
• Ampersands are sometimes used instead of and when it is part of a name rather than the typical conjunction used when naming a series of items. Here, too, it feels like a stretch and more confusing than helpful. Wikipedia gives this example: “Rock, pop, rhythm & blues and hip hop.” This seems like an unnecessary affectation if we would but use the traditional Oxford serial comma like this: “Rock, pop, rhythm and blues, and hip hop.” Or better still, “Rock, pop, hip hop, and rhythm and blues.”

Tip: Great editors often suggest series—Oxford or otherwise—be changed to put the longest entry last.

Many of my clients tell me they use the ampersand to make their writing stand apart from others or “because it’s pretty.” As an editor, I discourage them from this choice. Used this way it is distracting for many. The first thing we want in our writing no matter the genre is clarity, the last is reader distraction.

Readers of the new edition of the multi award-winning The Frugal Editor—now published by Modern History Press—will find a whole slew of updates on topics like this as well as coverage on recent changes in the publishing world. These are topics like pronoun gender, and choices we must make when we choose to write in accordance with suggestions for being politically correct.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. Both the first and second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor are multi award-winners. The latter is her winningest book, which garnered awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others, including the coveted Irwin award. Her third book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series is How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. It was released to acclaim from The Midwest Book Review and others.

The author loves to travel. She has visited more than 90 countries and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She loves #SharingwithWriters. Thank you, Dr. Rich for including this in your “Bobbing Around!” Her website is https://howtodoitfrugally.com.