So if I say that, everyone will understand that e.g. the "e" syllable is before the "&"? I've seen a couple questions and answers on here that seem to use this kind of notation.
yes, it's also like an address for when a note is. if you say a note is "on the and of 4" that means it's the last 8th note of the bar. if you say something is "on the a of 2" that would be the second 16th note in the second beat, in other words the 6th 16th note of the bar