[tomsto]

It’s a fun fact but I’d challenge whether it was the case in Anglo-Saxon education. Do you have a source? The Anglo-Saxons definitely had an early ampersand. I don’t know of any source where they give it a name. It’s still plausible they recited the alphabet in this way.

But the practice of reciting ‘and, per se, and’ is only attested in England and the US in the 19th century as far as I’m aware, and that’s where the corruption came from.

[throwaway894345]

I heard it on History of English Podcast, but I might be misremembering. I suppose it was probably post-1066; not sure what the bounds on "Anglo-Saxon" are.