Flying from Calgary to Toronto today, I overheard a businessman in the seat next to me ask a colleague: "Did she send the email to you, too? She copy-catted me."
That got me thinking, of course. The "cc" in the lower, left-hand corner of so much of our written correspondence refers to the existence of a carbon copy, physically prepared with the original and circulated to other parties. In the years following the rise of the photocopier, some of us tried to get "pc" to stick, but perhaps because of the political connotations in Canada -- our old Progressive Conservatives were called pee-cees -- few people took it up. It remains "cc."
But what is the logic for using "cc" for our copied emails? This is the furthest thing from a carbon copy, of course. So, when did we start referring to "cc" as "copy-cat"? Is a "copy-cat" no longer a shameful thing? And does this mean that "bcc" now means "blind copy-cat"?
