how to print an ampersand in posts and comments

In this thread (2nd post), I can't answer the OPs question because i can't get an ampersand to print, either within [CODE] tags or otherwise.

I would like to print [ampersand]#10; to designate one way to represent a newline character.

If i use '&' to print an ampersand, i get '&' literally; the initial ampersand doesn't get interpreted.

If i use [ampersand]#38; to print an ampersand, it interprets the ampersand AND the following '#10;', and i get nothing but a whitespace.