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Iz-kan-reddit t1_jdwuu6d wrote

Hey, you're the one that used the term.

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theplutosys t1_jdwww16 wrote

I don’t get what you are asking. The definition of ditto?

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_jdwzhpd wrote

It was a play on "what's a computer?"

Many would say that the term came from the purple copies that smelled oh so good back in the old days.

Not my best work.

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Mikesaidit36 t1_jdxej3g wrote

Those smelly slightly damp blue/purple copies were mimeographs. I’m old enough to remember seeing a hand crank machine in an office somewhere with somebody cracking up smelly copies. Different than xeroxes. But I’m just realizing I’ve known what the word ditto means all along without knowing what it comes from.

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_jdxkwxg wrote

>But I’m just realizing I’ve known what the word ditto means all along without knowing what it comes from.

The term ditto for a mimiograph copy actually comes from the term ditto, which comes from Latin though Italian. Just a little tidbit I finally happened to learn a couple of years ago after half a century on this Earth. I had always had the same assumption as you.

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Fabulous_Brother2991 t1_jdz5ems wrote

Remember that lovely smell of those fresh warm mimeograghed papers.... mmmmmm!

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Mikesaidit36 t1_jdzkr48 wrote

Probably highly carcinogenic like everything that seems so great at first

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