Subject: Re: What is CC ?? From: Steven J. Coker Date: February 08, 1999 Lynn S Teague wrote: > When taking typing many many years ago, I was told that cc means "courtesy > copy." The term "courtesy copy" as a meaning for cc is of recent origin. When office copy machines started becoming widespread in the 1960's the use of carbon copies began to decrease. When wordprocessors and Personal Computers came on the scene, carbon paper became rarely used. But, the use of the term cc has continued. In the 1800's and earlier, making a copy of a written document took considerable effort. It wasn't like running them off on a copier. People seldom made "courtesy copies" of documents. They made copies only for serious needs which warranted the effort, and expense, required. The term cc was used mostly in typewritten materials. It was also used for handwritten documents, but not as often. It indicated that a copy of the document was made using carbon paper and that the carbon copy was sent to the people listed. Customs often outlive their original context. While for almost a century the term stood for Carbon Copy, that meaning no longer makes sense now that carbon paper isn't used. So, the new meaning of "courtesy copy" has been adopted. It is interesting that in this case the abbreviation existed before the term that it abbreviates. When I took typing in 1966-67 the term still meant carbon copy. I use it now in email and office documents without any use of carbon paper. Therefore, to make it have meaning, we say it stands for courtesy copy. Of course it might make more sense if we simply changed the abbreviation to something else like cp for "copy provided" or cf for "copy furnished" or ct for "copy to" or maybe just wrote the word copy. Steve ==== SCROOTS Mailing List ==== Go To: #, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Main |