Posted on 01/31/2025 8:23:16 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The evolution of technology is unrelentingly swift. Generations have witnessed state-of-the-art inventions become obsolete in the blink of an eye. The fax machine, the pager, and the landline, all once revolutionary, have earned their place in the annals of history. Yet email — born in 1971 when engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the very first “ping” — has remarkably endured. This persistent form of communication continues to redefine itself for the digital age, but one enigmatic email feature hasn’t changed for over 50 years: the “cc.”
The “cc” field is a familiar sight perched within the recipient line of an email. The purpose is to send a copy of the message to an additional recipient who might need the information, but isn’t integral to the action of the message. Its modern definition traces back to its original usage in the late 19th century, when a duplicate was called a “carbon copy.”
Around the 1870s, long before photocopiers, documents were painstakingly duplicated by hand using carbon paper between two sheets of plain paper. Something written or typed on the top page would be transferred to the bottom piece of paper through the pressure on the carbon (essentially ink). The exact replica was called a “carbon copy.” By the 1920s, the term “carbon copy” had shifted to figuratively describe something that was a near-identical replica, such as “Mark was a carbon copy of his father.” This usage made its way into corporate America in the 1930s, when it was used in business as shorthand to ensure that multiple parties received the same information.
When email emerged in the 1970s, “cc” was quickly adapted, as the jargon was already familiar in professional circles. The concept of the “bcc” (blind carbon copy) soon followed, allowing a sender to conceal recipients entered in the “bcc” field. In the 1980s, the use of “cc” became so prevalent that it evolved into a verb, as in, “I cc’d Amy on that message.”
Even as digital technology seems to be on the cusp of the next big thing,”cc” is here to stay. The anachronism has survived 150 years, evolving from an industrial-era hand-copying tool into an indispensable feature of email etiquette, cementing its place in communication with one simple click.
My grandmother born in 1888 lived with us when I was a child and she always said davenport instead of couch too. So I still it a davenport.
I skipped my pager across a pond. That was SO satisfying.
Amazing, isn’t it? And soon your AI-powered tablet will do most of your composition for you, to boot!
“Great way to meet chicks.”
It was...but I must have been the quintessential nerd because I came out of that class without a girlfriend!
I guess the young’uns don’t know about carbon paper. I hadn’t thought about that.
How about “dungarees”? My mom was a small-town girl in Idaho and I think she brought that with her after marrying dad in ‘47. She insisted no son of hers was going to wear “dungarees” as that indicated a lowly farm or ranch hand.
I think many of us still say ‘tin can’ and ‘tin foil’, even though those things haven’t really been ‘tin’ for a long time.
When computers came along, I bet a lot of guys wished they had learned to type.
By the time I retired a few years ago, I didn’t know a single young person who could touch-type. They’ve gotten very fast at ‘hunting and pecking’; but it’s not TYPING.
(On the other hand, I will never master the ‘thumb’ thing on the cell phone...)
agree
I don’t think I ever wore jeans until I was about 16, and I don’t recall what my Grandmother called them. Probably just ‘pants’ or ‘britches’.
I’m sure there are a lot of old words that many of us grew up using, that we don’t even remember now...
Here’s something fun.
Phone lines used to be actual wires going into the home. The range of frequencies they could carry will minimal loss is from 300—3000 Hz (many times called 3kHz flat).
Now, a dial tone was 90 Hz which had high loss and shouldn’t have been able to be heard but the dial tone’s strength ‘sounded’ so loud. How come?
The human ear is also a nonlinear mixer which can take multiple tones and produce the sum and difference products that can be discerned by the hearer. So the real ‘dial tone’ was TWO TONES - one at 250Hz and the other at 340Hz - the difference being 90Hz which the hearer discerns.....
I still have Onionskin, left over from the days when it was used for carbon copies and airmail.
And we still talk about video in terms of “tape.”
How many hours of sleep would I have gotten in college if I had had word processing instead of my portable Olympic typewriter.
Remember putting footnotes at the bottom of a page in the typewriter? Tricky stuff.
I remember Onionskin paper and envelopes with “Air Mail” printed on it along with red and blue stripes along the edge for when I mailed a letter to my Aunt via airmail. The stamps had an airplane on it.
Remember putting footnotes at the bottom of a page in the typewriter? Tricky stuff.
The struggle was real.
“ Seems ‘CC’ has evolved from “carbon copy” to “courtesy copy” once emails became standard practice.”
I didn’t know that.
Thanks for the interesting tidbit.
I remember that, too.
I also have some old letters my father wrote when he served in the Marines during WWII. They only had very small pieces of stationary, so they couldn’t write much, and very small envelopes; so they were more like ‘notes’, not letters.
Michael Nesmith’s mother.
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