Ditto mark
The ditto mark is a typographic symbol used in lists, tables, inventories, and handwritten documents to indicate the repetition of a word, figure, phrase, or line from the entry immediately above it, thereby avoiding redundancy.[1] Typically rendered as a pair of horizontal lines, double apostrophes, or closing double quotation marks (""), it serves as a shorthand for "the same as above."[2] In English usage, the mark has been common since the late 19th century, often appearing in ledgers, receipts, and scientific notations to streamline repetitive entries.[3] The word "ditto," from which the mark derives its name, entered English in the 1620s via the Tuscan dialectal form ditto, meaning "(in) the said (month or year)," originally to abbreviate repeated dates in records.[4] It stems from Italian detto, the past participle of dire ("to say"), ultimately tracing to Latin dicere ("to speak" or "to say"), rooted in the Proto-Indo-European deik- ("to show").[3] By the 1670s, "ditto" had broadened in English to signify "the aforesaid" or "the same thing" in general contexts, such as commerce and literature, evolving into adjectival, adverbial, and verbal forms by the 18th and 19th centuries.[2] The associated mark, initially inverted commas or apostrophes, facilitated this repetition in print and script, as seen in 19th-century inventories and 20th-century publications.[3] Though once ubiquitous in manual accounting and typing—linked even to early duplicating machines called "ditto machines" in the mid-20th century—the ditto mark's prevalence has waned with the rise of digital tools that automate repetition, such as spreadsheets and copy-paste functions.[2] In contemporary typography, it persists in informal notes or specific stylistic contexts, and the Unicode standard encodes a dedicated character (U+3003 〃) primarily for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) scripts, where ditto-like iteration marks have analogous historical uses.[5] Style guides like The Chicago Manual of Style reference it sparingly for tables and bibliographies, often recommending alternatives like em dashes for repeated elements.[6]Overview
Definition
The ditto mark is a typographical symbol employed to denote the repetition of the preceding entry in lists, tables, or accounts, thereby avoiding redundancy in written or printed text.[3][7] It functions as a shorthand indicator, signaling that the information directly above it—whether a word, phrase, number, or figure—should be understood to apply again without restating it explicitly.[8][9] In its basic mechanics, the ditto mark is placed directly below or beside the item to be repeated, conventionally implying "same as above" and facilitating concise documentation.[3][7] This placement aligns vertically with the repeated element in columnar formats, such as inventories or ledgers, to maintain clarity and alignment.[8] Common visual representations include double quotation marks (″) or horizontal lines, though the exact form can vary by context.[3] The ditto mark's development stems from the practical need for efficiency in manual record-keeping, where repeating entries by hand in documents like invoices or scientific logs would otherwise consume excessive time and space.[3] By the late 19th century, such marks had become standardized tools for streamlining repetitive notations in professional and administrative writing.[3] For instance, in a price list formatted as follows:| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Apple | $1 |
| $1 |