The ampersand is a convenient little typographic symbol and
abbreviation, but it can surely spell trouble for a blogger or web writer.
In a title and in the web-quoted first line of a blog post
or an article, an
ampersand
often appears with odd coding (as pictured here):
Ouch!
This looks terrible, and it may muck up search engine
findings. The simple symbol shows up as a misspelled word, instead of a
character shortcut.
What’s more, on some publishing sites (like Examiner.com),
the use of an ampersand can lead to publishing glitches, particularly when
titles are listed as related links at the base of new articles. When a writer
revises a piece, for example, the symbol is automatically replaced by the above
gobbledly-gook, which stops the publishing tool in its tracks.
Avoid the ampersand,
if possible.
Sure, the ampersand takes up one letter space, as opposed to
the three whole spaces occupied by the full word “and.” But this little word is
clearly recognized online, even robotically.
AND it’s a safer bet, all around.
Yes, sometimes an
ampersand
appears in a cited work’s title, a company name, or another letter-for-letter
reference. If that’s the case, it’s easiest to keep that item out of the blog
post or web article title and first sentence. That should keep the odd
transcription out of the picture.
Within the
text of
actual body copy (in a blog post, article, book, or other work), it’s
technically only correct to employ the ampersand when it is part of an actual
proper name or directly quoted term.
Image/s:
Created by this user
with public domain clipart
