f Italian. The English language is rife with many Italian loanwords, including “macaroni,” “paparazzi,” and the topic of today’s lesson, “ditto.” The Italian ditto is a dialect variant of detto, meaning “said” — as in, “already said.” Its use in English has spanned almost every part of speech, though today, “ditto” is almost exclusively used in its adverbial form as an informal synonym for the word “same.”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “ditto” came into English as a noun in the early 17th century, meaning “in or of the month already named.” In other words, if someone wrote “20th of June,” later dates could be written as “25th ditto” and “17th ditto.”By the late 17th century, people began using “ditto” more generally as a way to avoid writing repetitive words in the same text. It was a handy tactic that became popular in speech as well.
Merriam-Webster adds that by the 1710s, “ditto” began to function as both an adverb (meaning “same”) and a verb (e.g., “He dittoed what the other person said”). “Ditto” gained traction thereafter in the context of science and commerce, as people used the term as a way to avoid repeating mundane and complex terminology. In the 19th century, authors including Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott began to use “ditto” in a more colloquial context, thus broadening society’s overall familiarity with the term.
However, as the English language modernized, 20th-century speakers began to rely on “ditto” less. It was rarely, if ever, used as a noun as originally intended, and the verb “to ditto” diminished in popularity as well. But the adverbial form — meaning “same as what has been said” — stuck around, primarily as a way to express informal agreement. This form of “ditto” saw a resurgence after the release of the 1990 film Ghost, in which Patrick Swayze’s character Sam uses it as a way to say “I love you too” to Demi Moore’s Molly. Since then, “ditto” has remained a part of our collective lexicon as an alternative for “same” or “agreed.”
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