W, X, Y, and Z ... and &

The letter z wasn’t always last. Up into the 1800s, the alphabet ended with the symbol &, called an ampersand. It meant and then, too—like a and i, it was both a character and a word. No one knows for sure when & was booted from the alphabet, but it didn’t make the cut when the “Now I know my ABCS” ditty was copyrighted in 1835.