Ditto Mark on:
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The ditto mark is a shorthand
Early evidence of ditto marks can be seen on a cuneiform tablet of the
/ref> In English, the abbreviation "''do.''" has sometimes been used.
sign
A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above it are to be repeated.
The mark is made using 'a pair of apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
s'; 'a pair of marks used underneath a word'; the symbol (quotation mark
Quotation marks (also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an ...
); but the Cambridge Dictionary of Business English on the same page uses the CJK ditto mark or the symbol (right double quotation mark).
In the following example, the second line reads "Blue pens, box of twenty".
Black pens, box of twenty ... $2.10 Blue " " " " ... $2.35
History
Early evidence of ditto marks can be seen on a cuneiform tablet of the Neo-Assyrian
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
period (934–608 BCE) where two vertical marks are used in a table of synonyms to repeat text.
In China the corresponding historical mark was two horizontal lines (also the symbol of "two"), found in bronze script
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...
from the Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...
, as in the example at right (circa 825 BCE). In script form this became , and is now written as ; see iteration mark
Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word. Chinese
In Chinese, (usually appearing as ) or is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character. However, it is not used in formal writ ...
.
The word ''ditto
DITTO is a company that sells software that aids eyewear companies sell their products online using virtual fitting. Originally DITTO was a retailer that sold designer prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. The company is based in San Francisco, ...
'' comes from the Tuscan language
Tuscan ( it, dialetto toscano ; it, vernacolo, label=locally) is a set of Italo-Dalmatian varieties of Romance mainly spoken in Tuscany, Italy.
Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine dialect, and it became the lan ...
, where it is the past participle of the verb ''dire'' (to say), with the meaning of "said", as in the locution "the said story". The first recorded use of ditto with this meaning in English occurs in 1625.Definition at The Free Dictionary/ref> In English, the abbreviation "''do.''" has sometimes been used.
Other languages
For Chinese, Japanese and Korean, there is the specificUnicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
character in the range CJK Symbols and Punctuation
CJK Symbols and Punctuation is a Unicode block containing symbols and punctuation used for writing the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. It also contains one Chinese character.
Block
The block has variation sequences defined for East ...
. This facilitates the setting of both marks on a single horizontal line in Asian vertical text.
Other languages may use equivalent symbols, for example in German is used. In Swedish handwriting, a version using vertical lines to indicate the span of the cell in a table where an entry repeats is sometimes seen (––〃––). In French, it is called a , but the actual symbol used may vary. is used in Quebec, while in France is preferred. The English symbol also gains ground in popular usage.
See also
*Dittography
Dittography is the accidental, erroneous act of repeating a letter, word, phrase or combination of letters by a scribe or copyist. The term is used in the field of textual criticism. The opposite phenomenon, in which a copyist omits text by skippi ...
*Ibid.
Ibid. is an abbreviation for the Latin word '' ibīdem'', meaning "in the same place", commonly used in an endnote, footnote, bibliography citation, or scholarly reference to refer to the source cited in the preceding note or list item. This ...
*Iteration mark
Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word. Chinese
In Chinese, (usually appearing as ) or is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character. However, it is not used in formal writ ...
References
External links
* * :fr:Guillemet#Répétition atFrench Wikipedia
The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has article ...
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Typographical symbols