At 21:48 -0500 2003-01-21, Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>Some time ago, I discovered the Tironian Sign (U+204A), which looks
>something like a lowered 7. Later, I suddenly realized that when
>various symbols and punctuation marks were assigned to shifted digit
>keys on our common keyboard, that, surely enough, the ampersand was
>placed on the 7 key.

So it is.

>I have been wondering for some time whether this simply happened, or
>whether it was done with some awareness. Perhaps the answer is known
>to most Qalamites, but I have no information.

I suspect that it is just an accident, but in the Irish keyboard
standard we are drawing up, plain-7 = 7, shift-7 = &, alt-7 = ¶
(pilcrow), and shift-alt-7 = U+204A

>Is this sign sometimes read aloud as "ond"?

In Old English, yes. Some interesting information about this sign is
at http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/amperagus.pdf
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com