What is "ditto mark"

n. a mark used to indicate the word above it should be repeated [syn: ditto]

The ditto mark (〃) is a typographic symbol indicating that the word(s) or figure(s) above it are to be repeated. For example:

:{| |- |Black pens, box of twenty|| ..... ||£2.10 |- |Blue  ″     ″   ″  ″    || ..... ||£2.35 |}

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. Early evidence of ditto marks can be seen on a cuneiform tablet of the Neo-Assyrian period (934 – 608 BC) where two vertical marks are used in a table of synonyms to repeat text, while in China the corresponding mark is two horizontal lines (二); see iteration mark.