“Even though the flights home were delayed 2 hours in total, I think it worked well connecting through Vancouver this time,” I commented as we drove the final leg of the vacation to Japan. She replied, “Ditto. Only waiting 4.5 hours in the Vancouver airport to make a Regina connection isn’t bad.” (Last year we had an 11 hour wait.)
Ditto means as before or aforesaid. It is most often used to indicate a similar sentiment or agreement with a previous statement. “I am ready for a break.” “Ditto.” It can mean the same as ‘so am I.’
The history of the word ditto starts with Italian. Early 17th century English speakers noticed that in Italian, ditto or detto was used to refer to a thing mentioned previously. The Italians had developed ditto/detto themselves, with its origins found in the Latin dicere, meaning "to say." English speakers put the word to use in ways the Italians had not thought to do. Adjectival use quickly followed the adoption of the noun use, and by the 18th century, ditto was also functioning in English as an adverb and as a verb.
In English, ditto first functioned in the texts of inventories and invoices, as well as in dry scientific observances. As Edward Donovan, in his 1795 The Natural History of British Insects, noted that the subject of a first illustration being identified as "the natural size of the larva, with its manner of feeding," and the second as "magnified appearance of the upperside of ditto."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote in the weekly sporting paper Bell’s Life in London (October 18, 1835), “Mr. Thomas Potter, then, was a clerk in the city, and Mr. Robert Smithers was a ditto in the same.” Here ditto refers to a thing mentioned previously, used to avoid repeating a word.
Ditto can also be used as a verb. “It’s too early to know whether the store’s sale will be dittoed by others.” “The woman in the street interview dittoed the Prime Minister’s comments.” ““I think we did the best job we could,” the second baseman commented. The right fielder dittoed that.”
Though now extinct, DITTO was a trademark of the Starkey Chemical Process Co., of La Grange, Illinois. Ditto machines existed before photocopiers as a kind of duplicator involving a fluid process. Whatever was to be copied was typed onto a master sheet with carbon paper attached to it. When the carbon paper was removed, carbon from the marks made remains on the back of the master sheet; the master sheet was then fed through a machine and moistened with a hydrocarbon fluid that dissolved a thin layer of the carbon deposit onto sheets of paper. For generations of students in the 20th century, worksheets with text in a cool shade of purple, fresh with the scent of the chemical-laden process still clinging to their surfaces, were the norm in many classrooms. (I recall that smell from my elementary school days.) So common were the duplicators, that ditto developed an additional verb use of "to copy on a duplicator."
I still remember in my first parish in 1982 that the weekly bulletin was mass copied by using a ditto machine, a Gestetner. The Gestetner company established its base in London, filing its first patent in 1879. The business grew, remaining within the control of the Gestetner family until in 1995, when the Gestetner company was acquired by the Ricoh Corporation of Japan.
The ditto mark is a shorthand symbol, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above them are to be repeated. The shorthand ditto is made using a pair of apostrophes underneath a word. An example is:
Blue pens, box of twenty - $2.50
Red ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ - $3.00
Someone said the other day, “The days are getting shorter, but it is still nice to have more than 12 hours of daylight each day for the next month.” I ditto that. Enjoy these last of the summer days.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com. Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
