The Origins of Ditto and Mimeograph

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Margaret from Montgomery County, Indiana.

What can we help you with, Margaret?

I was wondering about the correlation between the mimeograph machine and the word ditto, because when I was in elementary school in the early 80s, we would have to take these papers down to the secretary’s office and make dittos, as the teacher called them on the mimeograph machine.

We never made mimeographs, and we would get these little bluish-purple-y ink copies to take back to the teacher, and I never understood how they were called dittos because we had always considered dittos something like an agreement, like I ditto your sentiment.

And I never knew why I wasn’t carrying back a stack of mimeographs.

Oh, there’s so much to unpack here.

Oh, my gosh.

First of all, we can talk about the coolness of those purple printouts as they came off the machine, right?

They were cool to the touch.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

And what was your experience of the teacher passing them out to the students?

Oh, it was kind of a big deal.

Generally, it was a math test or a phonics lesson at that age.

But if you were lucky, you got to crank the handle.

It was a big deal.

Oh, you’re all about producing them.

Now, I’m all about when they pass them out to us and sniffing them.

And I just I remember the first time that happened in first grade.

And I was thinking first grade is going to be all right.

You were sniffing alcohol, you know, right?

I know.

Yes.

Yes.

Methanol.

It’s just, oh, my gosh, that sensation.

I’m sure if I smelled it now, I would be immediately back in Mrs. Berry’s class at Field Elementary.

I guess I just gave away two of my security questions there.

And your cat’s name?

Yeah.

But that methanol, not only is it a thing that you smelled, it’s what made the pages cool as it evaporates and you get that cooling sensation.

You’re using mimeograph and ditto kind of interchangeably.

Is that what I’m hearing, Margaret?

Well, I never understood why the mimeograph machine didn’t make mimeographs.

Like, that’s what the papers were called.

As a little kid, how did they come up with calling the papers or the copies dittos?

Yeah.

I wonder if there was just some interchangeable looseness of language there.

Because Ditto machines and mimeograph machines were very, very different.

The mimeograph machines used a kind of stencil system.

And the Ditto machines used kind of a waxed paper that was imprinted.

A cheap-by waxed paper imbued with ink that would come through, right?

Yeah.

And then the cool solvent.

I mean, the kids were actually sniffing the leftover solvent that made the wax print on the page, if I’m understanding the process correctly.

Let the ink come through, right?

Yeah, right.

From that particular…

Where you had pressed with either your pen or your typewriter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it saves you from the problem of typesetting.

That was what made it so popular in terms of printing.

But these two machines started separately.

The Mimeograph is much older, dates back well into the mid-1800s or so.

But it was a brand name.

The machine itself was patented by Thomas Edison, but it was one of his licensees that came up with the name Mimeograph.

And it was one of many names for these machines and really made that name stick.

And it became generic.

And then by the 1919 or so, the Ditto machine came along with this different process.

It produced fewer pages, but it was easier to do, and the machines were cheaper.

And it was also a brand name, and it also became generic.

And I can totally see how, by the time the 1980s rolled around, Margaret, and you were in school, mimeograph and Ditto kind of seemed like the same because they both produced pages for your class and weren’t really familiar necessarily with what was happening inside the machine.

Right.

And then they got replaced by Xerox and Xerography, which come from the Greek word for dry, like xeriscaping is when you plant your yard so that it doesn’t require water.

So the name Xerox, then that’s a selling point.

You don’t have to deal with filling the reservoir of your Ditto machine with alcohol, right?

Right, you’re photocopying.

Yeah, you’re photocopying.

Yeah, that’s amazing.

So how’s that, Margaret?

That’s a pretty short story for a longer history of two different kinds of reproduction technology.

I love it.

I really appreciate it.

I didn’t realize Ditto was a separate machine altogether.

So I’ve learned a lot.

So thank you.

Yeah, that’s where the confusion lies.

Yeah, the word ditto, by the way, from Italian goes back hundreds of years, what, 1500s in English.

So it’s been used.

And there’s a double apostrophe that you can use as a proofreader’s mark, which means duplicate this or this has been duplicated.

Yes, I’ve seen that.

I just called them double apostrophes.

Yeah, but that’s also the name for that.

Double apostrophe is a ditto.

What do you know?

There you go.

Thanks, Margaret.

We really appreciate it.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

The obvious etymology, of course, of mimeograph is to write the same.

Right?

Mimeo means like to mime.

You’re mimicking something.

Mimicking mime.

And then graph to write.

Yep.

But I wanted to talk about or just mention these other names for these similar machines that have kind of just been lost to history.

The formograph, the mimeoscope, spirit duplicators.

A ditto machine is a kind of spirit duplicator.

Right.

But nobody calls it that except if you’re in the business.

Yeah, you’d think that would be something else, a spirit duplicator.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s like ghosts and Ouija boards or something.

Hectographs, roneographs, papyrographs.

All kinds of names for them.

Yeah, but you can find them in patent applications and old sales guides and old catalogs, but they’re just not as common as mimeographs and ditto were.

I’m interested, too, that Margaret was focused more on the machines themselves.

I can remember that thudding kind of sound that they made when they were running those things off.

But that kind of solvent that was in those gave people headaches.

The people who worked with them a lot, it caused nausea and headaches among the office workers who were running them a whole lot.

And it’s not just the alcohol.

The aniline, which gave it the purple color, is poisonous.

Oh, really?

Oh.

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