In Old English manuscripts, the Tironian served as both a phonetic and morphological place holder. For instance, a Tironian between two words would be phonetically pronounced "ond" and would mean 'and'. However, if the Tironian followed the letter "s", then it would be phonetically pronounced "sond" and mean 'water' (ancestral to Modern English "sound" in the geographical sense). This additional function of a phonetic as well as a conjunction placeholder has escaped formal Modern English; for example, one may not spell the word "sand" as "s&" (although this occurs in an informal style practised on certain Internet forums and sometimes in texting and other forms of instant messaging). This practice was distinct from the occasional use of "&c." for "etc.", where the "&" is interpreted as the Latin word ('and') and the "c." is an abbreviation for Latin (' rest').