Product Code Database
The ditto mark is a shorthand sign, 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 "; "a pair of marks used underneath a word"; the symbol (quotation mark); but the Cambridge Dictionary of Business English on the same page uses the CJK ditto mark or the symbol (right double quotation mark). (2011). 9780199601110, OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780199601110
In the following example, the second line reads "Blue pens, box of twenty".
Black pens, box of twenty ... $2.10
Blue " " " " ... $2.35
The word ditto comes from the Tuscan language, 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.
In English, the abbreviation " do.", usually italicised, has sometimes been used instead of ditto marks - see example below, and also in a table in a U.S. Patent.
In China the corresponding historical mark was two horizontal lines (Unicode ), which is also the ancient ideograph of "two", similar to the modern ideograph . It is found in bronze script from the Zhou dynasty, as in the example at right (). In seal script form this became , and is now written as ; see iteration mark. In the Maya script, a pair of small dots may appear above or in front of a glyph to indicate that it should be read twice. This duplication diacritic functions as a phonetic doubling device, typically applied to syllabic signs. For example, the Maya word kakaw ("Cocoa bean") can be written with a ka sign marked by two small prefixed dots, signaling that it be read as ka-ka, followed by wa.
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