In e-mail, a carbon copy (abbreviated "cc,"
and sometimes "fcc" for "first carbon copy") is a copy
of a note sent to an addressee other than the main addressee. A blind carbon
copy is a copy sent to an addressee that is not visible to the main and
carbon copy addressees. For example, you may have a work colleague that
acts as a back-up when you're on vacation or not at work. You don't necessarily
want the people you correspond with to know that you have a back-up. So,
to keep your back-up informed, you always send the back-up a blind carbon
copy. The fact that a blind carbon copy was sent is not apparent to the
main and carbon copy recipients.
The term is borrowed from the days of the mechanical and later the electronic
typewriter (circa 1879-1979) when copies of typed sheets of paper were made
by inserting a special sheet of inked paper called carbon paper into the
typewriter. For two copies, you would insert carbon paper (sometimes just
called a "carbon") between the original being typed and each of
the two sheets that would become the carbon copies.
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