Carbon copy

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A copy made with carbon paper Karbonkopia 2008.jpg
A copy made with carbon paper

Before the development of photographic copiers, a carbon copy was the under-copy of a typed or written document placed over carbon paper and the under-copy sheet itself (not to be confused with the carbon print family of photographic reproduction processes). [1] When copies of business letters were so produced, it was customary to use the acronym "CC" or "cc" before a colon and below the writer's signature to inform the principal recipient that carbon copies had been made and distributed to the parties listed after the colon. [2] With the advent of word processors and e-mail, "cc" is used as a merely formal indication of the distribution of letters to secondary recipients.

Contents

Process

A sheet of carbon paper is placed between two or more sheets of paper. The pressure applied by the writing implement (pen, pencil, typewriter or impact printer) to the top sheet causes pigment from the carbon paper to reproduce the similar mark on the copy sheet(s). More than one copy can be made by stacking several sheets with carbon paper between each pair. Four or five copies is a practical limit. The top sheet is the original and each of the additional sheets is called a carbon copy.

History

As creating carbon copies requires relatively few resources, it became a common method for producing underground and clandestine newspapers, as seen in this French example from World War II. La Libre clandestine 15 Aout 1940 06.jpg
As creating carbon copies requires relatively few resources, it became a common method for producing underground and clandestine newspapers, as seen in this French example from World War II.

While carbon paper was invented by Pellegrino Turri in 1801, [3] it was not widely used for copying until typewriters became common. [4] Carbon copies were in wide use between the 1870s and 1980s, largely for administrative tasks. [5]

Use

The use of carbon copies declined with the advent of photocopying and electronic document creation and distribution (word processing). Carbon copies are still sometimes used in special applications: for example, in manual receipt books which have a multiple-use sheet of carbon paper supplied, so that the user can keep an exact copy of each receipt issued, although even here carbonless copy paper is often used to the same effect.

It is still common for a business letter to include, at the end, a list of names preceded by the abbreviation "CC", indicating that the named persons are to receive copies of the letter, even though carbon paper is no longer used to make the copies.

An alternative etymology is that "c:" was used for copy and "cc:" indicates the plural, just as "p." means page and "pp." means pages. This alternative etymology explains the frequent usage of "c:" when only one recipient is listed, while "cc:" is used for two or more recipients of the copies. This etymology can also explain why, even originally, "cc:" was used to list recipients who received typed copies and not necessarily carbon copies. [6] Sometimes this "cc" is interpreted as "courtesy copy".

The term "carbon copy" can denote anything that is a near duplicate of an original ("...and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land!" Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land ). [7]

Use as a verb

Carbon copy can be used as a transitive verb with the meaning described under e-mail below related to the CC field of an e-mail message. That is, to send the message to additional recipients beyond the primary recipient. It is common practice to abbreviate the verb form, and many forms are used, including cc and cc:. Past tense forms in use are CCed, cc'd, cc'ed, cc-ed and cc:'d. [8] Present participle or imperfect forms in use include cc'ing. Merriam-Webster uses cc, cc'd and cc'ing, respectively. [9]

Email

In common usage, an email message has three fields for addressees: the To field is for principal recipients of the message, the Cc field indicates secondary recipients whose names are visible to one another and to the principal, and the Bcc (blind carbon copy) field contains the names of tertiary recipients whose names are invisible to each other and to the primary and secondary recipients. It is considered good practice to indicate to the other recipients that a new participant has been added to the list of receivers (e.g. by writing "I sent a copy to John Doe" or "John Doe, who is reading in copy, [...]"). [10]

Printers

Dot matrix and daisy wheel impact printers are also able to use carbon paper to produce several copies of a document in one pass, and most models feature adjustable impact power and head spacing to accommodate up to three copies plus the original printout. Usually, this feature is used in conjunction with continuous, prearranged perforated paper and carbon supplies for use with a tractor feeder, rather than with single sheets of paper, for example, when printing out commercial invoices or receipts.

Examples

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email</span> Mail sent using electronic means

Electronic mail is a method of transmitting and receiving messages using electronic devices. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail. Email is a ubiquitous and very widely used communication medium; in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letter (message)</span> Written message from one to another

A letter is a written message conveyed from one person to another through a medium. Something epistolary means that it is a form of letter writing. The term usually excludes written material intended to be read in its original form by large numbers of people, such as newspapers and placards, although even these may include material in the form of an "open letter". The typical form of a letter for many centuries, and the archetypal concept even today, is a sheet of paper that is sent to a correspondent through a postal system. A letter can be formal or informal, depending on its audience and purpose. Besides being a means of communication and a store of information, letter writing has played a role in the reproduction of writing as an art throughout history. Letters have been sent since antiquity and are mentioned in the Iliad. Historians Herodotus and Thucydides mention and use letters in their writings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mimeograph</span> Type of duplicating machine

A mimeograph machine was a low-cost duplicating machine that worked by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process was called mimeography, and a copy made by the process was a mimeograph.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP is standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email client</span> Computer program used to access and manage a users email

An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

BCC may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon paper</span> Paper used to make copies

Carbon paper consists of sheets of paper that create one or more copies simultaneously with the creation of an original document when inscribed by a typewriter or ballpoint pen.

Blind carbon copy allows the sender of a message to conceal the person entered in the Bcc field from the other recipients. This concept originally applied to paper correspondence and now also applies to email.

The Local Mail Transfer Protocol (LMTP) is an alternative to (Extended) Simple Mail Transfer Protocol for situations where the receiving side does not have a mail queue, such as a message transfer agent acting as a message delivery agent. LMTP was described in RFC 2033 in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Registered mail</span> Postal service

Registered mail is a mail service offered by postal services in many countries which allows the sender proof of mailing via a mailing receipt and, upon request, electronic verification that an article was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made. Depending on the country, additional services may also be available, such as:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hectograph</span> Printing process that involves transfer of an original

The hectograph, gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a printing process that involves transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a pan of gelatin or a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame.

A bounce message or just "bounce" is an automated message from an email system, informing the sender of a previous message that the message has not been delivered. The original message is said to have "bounced".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising mail</span> Distribution of advertising by direct mail or letterbox drop

Advertising mail, also known as direct mail, junk mail, mailshot or admail, letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia) is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. The delivery of advertising mail forms a large and growing service for many postal services, and direct-mail marketing forms a significant portion of the direct marketing industry. Some organizations attempt to help people opt out of receiving advertising mail, in many cases motivated by a concern over its negative environmental impact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Receipt</span> Written acknowledgment that a person has received money or property in payment

A receipt is a document acknowledging that a person has received money or property in payment following a sale or other transfer of goods or provision of a service. All receipts must have the date of purchase on them. If the recipient of the payment is legally required to collect sales tax or VAT from the customer, the amount would be added to the receipt, and the collection would be deemed to have been on behalf of the relevant tax authority. In many countries, a retailer is required to include the sales tax or VAT in the displayed price of goods sold, from which the tax amount would be calculated at the point of sale and remitted to the tax authorities in due course. Similarly, amounts may be deducted from amounts payable, as in the case of taxes withheld from wages. On the other hand, tips or other gratuities that are given by a customer, for example in a restaurant, would not form part of the payment amount or appear on the receipt.

In email, a return receipt is an acknowledgment by the recipient's email client to the sender of receipt of an email message. What acknowledgment, if any, is sent by the recipient to the sender is dependent on the email software of the recipient.

Sieve is a programming language that can be used for email filtering. It owes its creation to the CMU Cyrus Project, creators of Cyrus IMAP server.

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Formmail and its many variants, is a free open source web server CGI script that captures and processes form contents and then typically e-mails them to one or more recipients.

Challan or Chalan is a common Hindi word that has become an Indian English technical word used officially in many professional, especially financial transactions. It usually means an official form or receipt of acknowledgement or other kind of proof document, piece of paperwork, police citation, etc. According to American Merriam-Webster Dictionary "Chalan" means voucher or invoice. Similarly, British-English Dictionary Lexico also defines Challan as noun, "an official form or document, such as a receipt, invoice, or summons," and verb, "issue (someone) with an official notice of a traffic offence" and gives several examples of their applications, which are also paralleled by the Oxford Learner's Dictionary's two separate entries on the same. Wiktionary also gives examples of the application of the word challan in southeast Asia, including its use as a verb with challaning and challaned used similarly in context and meaning to police ticketing or someone being ticketed. While most of the dictionaries talk about the meaning representing a monetary penalty which is true in most real cases, Collins English Dictionary goes one step further and defines the verb part of the meaning of Chalan as "verb (transitive), to cause to appear before a magistrate," which in reality happens only in a subset of cases of Challan when a person misses paying the Challan and the matter moves to the next step of receiving a summon from a court.

References

  1. ↑ Raj (2020-07-13). "History of CC and BCC before Emails". Budding Geek. Archived from the original on 2022-12-06. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  2. ↑ Beal, Peter. (2008) "carbon copy" in A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450–2000. Online edition. Oxford University Press, 2008. http://www.oxfordreference.com Archived 2013-06-02 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "Italian Inventors and their Inventions". YourGuideToItaly.com. 2010. Archived from the original on 2023-05-09. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  4. ↑ "Carbon Copy". Society of American Archivists Dictionary. Society of American Archivists. Archived from the original on 2023-02-12. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  5. ↑ "Office Printing and Reprography". Preservation Self-Assessment Program (PSAP). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Archived from the original on 2023-02-12. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  6. ↑ "CC all readers" Archived 2015-05-09 at the Wayback Machine . New Scientist. 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-03.
  7. ↑ Heinlein, Robert A. (1991-10-01). Stranger in a Strange Land. Penguin. p. 121. ISBN   978-0-441-78838-5.
  8. ↑ "What To Do When You Are Cc:'d". thestudio.com. 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-12-14. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  9. ↑ "CC". Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. 2012. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25. Retrieved 2016-11-17.
  10. ↑ Resnick, Pete (April 2001). "RFC 2822 - Internet Message Format". The Internet Society. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
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