Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 23:03:56 EST

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: Judy's Carbon Copy



The cc in e-mailers is indeed a direct descendant of the initialism for

'carbon copy', although I wonder whether it (and indeed the cc at the bottom

of letters) hasn't been reanalyzed by many (especially of the post-carbon

generations) as being a plural of 'copy', as in mss. for 'manuscripts', pp for

'pages', ff., etc. I'll ask my Words & Meaning class and see what they

guess. (There must be some transparency for some writers, since one

occasionally sees 'xc' for 'xerox copy' instead.)



--Larry