Why Does "Amp" Show When You Use the & (and) Symbol in Questions?

1. 78

   J.S.Matthewposted 11 years ago

   Why Does "Amp" Show When You Use the & (and) Symbol in Questions?
   
   I know that the character is called "Ampand" or Amp&" but why does it show up this way when we publish Question or use it in Hub Titiles?

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2. 82

   tillsontitanposted 11 years ago

   That's an excellent question J.S.  I just posted a question and it happened to me.  I have no idea why and don't remember it happening before.

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   1. 78

      J.S.Matthewposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I saw your question right before I asked this one; that's what prompted me to ask it! I am looking forward to answers that explain this and wonder if there is a fix. This has happened to me so often that I stopped using the (&) symbol altogether!

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3. 87

   nochanceposted 11 years ago

   Because that is the html code for the symbol. Certain websites, or parts of websites are unsure how to process the symbol and therefore replace it with the code. There are times where I have tired to copy/paste content somewhere and it will replace all of my apostrophes with the code, that is really annoying to go back and fix.
   
   That's the easiest way I know to explain it. I don't know the technicalities because I don't know how to code websites.

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   1. 78

      J.S.Matthewposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That makes sense! Thank you! I am hoping someone from staff will see this and either fix this or tell us how to bypass it. It really is annoying because it takes up so much limited character count and makes comments/questions look bad and unreadable.

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   2. 87

      nochanceposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I would recommend not using symbols if at all possible. Personally I think they look unprofessional and lazy.

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   3. 78

      J.S.Matthewposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree! I haven't used symbols since I noticed this phenomenon a few moths ago. Besides, writing out the words adds to word count and length! Thanks again!  JS~

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4. 60

   duffsmomposted 11 years ago

   It isn't ampand, it is called an ampersand.  I think nochance has nailed it.

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5. 62

   m0rd0rposted 11 years ago

   Probably the software backend of HP is trying to translate the symbol to it's HTML code.
   
   The Ampersand sign (&) in HTML is & amp;
   The Greater than sign (>) in HTML is & gt;
   The quote sign (") in HTML is & quot;
   
   etc.
   
   If you write them in text field (without the spaces) inside hub pages, the software translates them to their symbols, but if you look at the HTML code, they are still special HTML instructions  between "&" and ";"

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