# Why \land instead of \and?

I recently asked the logical and character in TeX and got `\land` as the answer. My question is, why `\land`, and why not simple `\and`? I mean, does l here refer to something technical, or historical, or stuff like that? Or is it simply there to prevent name clash. Do we have `\and` in TeX?

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You can use backticks for inline code. –  ℝaphink Jul 22 '11 at 11:57
I'm pretty sure it's just a possible name clash thing. The `l` stands for "logic" presumably. For `\land` it might not be a problem, but `\or` is a TeX primitive (I think) so `\lor` is necessary to avoid that clash. –  Seamus Jul 22 '11 at 12:02
@Seamus: IIRC, `\and` is already taken as well. At least inside `\author`. –  You Jul 22 '11 at 12:07
@You Ah good point. I'd forgotten that. –  Seamus Jul 22 '11 at 12:17

The names are the same that Knuth gave them in Plain TeX. Since `\or` and `\not` are already used for more important things, adding the prefix `l` for "logical" was almost natural, so "and" followed the convention. And LaTeX continues with it.

The symbols `\land`, `\lor` and `\lnot` have synonyms: `\wedge`, `\vee` and `\neg` as they are called, I guess, by some lattice theory specialists.

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Wedge is also the more natural name in algebra and geometry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_product –  Caramdir Jul 22 '11 at 16:06
@Caramdir: some topologists use en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_sum, which unfortunately is often denoted using `\vee`, not `\wedge`. –  John Palmieri Jul 22 '11 at 18:53
I think "l" stands for logical. I read `\land` as "logical and".
There's also `\lor` (which I read as "logical or") and `\lnot` (which I read as "logical not").