page_title: Ditto mark
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ditto mark / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cuneiform synonym list tablet from the Library of Ashurbanipal. Neo-Assyrian period (934 BC - 608 BC).
context_page_description: The ditto mark ” is a typographic symbol indicating that the word or figure above it are to be repeated.
  The mark is made using a quotation mark pointing to the right. It is sometimes misrepresented by a pair of apostrophes, or the equivalent mark from Chinese, Japanese and Korean, all of which are visually similar.
  For example:
  In English, the abbreviation "do." is sometimes used.
context_section_description: Early evidence of ditto marks can be seen on a cuneiform tablet of the Neo-Assyrian period (934–608 BCE) where two vertical marks are used in a table of synonyms to repeat text.
  In China the corresponding historical mark was two horizontal lines 二 (also the symbol of "two"), found in bronze script from the Zhou Dynasty, as in the example at right (circa 825 BCE). In script form this became 〻, and is now written as 々; see iteration mark.
  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.
caption: Ditto marks date to cuneiform tablets.
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