In my elementary years the well-behaved "teachers pet" children were sometimes chosen to take that days assignment down to the library where the librarian would assist the child in making "dittos" on the "Ditto Machine". I never got to do this, but I always wanted to! I remember helping to pass out the warm papers with the purple-blue writing, that were also a little damp.
I love reading on Wikipedia, despite controversy that they are not always accurate, and I find all that linked information fascinating. Click, click, click!
Wikipedia tells me that Ditto Machines were a "low-volume printing method used mainly by schools and churches" and that the purple-blue writing is actually called "aniline purple".
One day, probably in Middle School, I realized that my assignments were no longer aniline purple, but black. Somewhere in the back of my head, I wondered what had happened to the Ditto Machine! And I wondered why the kids were sent to get copies instead of to "go make dittos".
Wikipedia instructs that few Ditto Machines were being used by 1985. That was nearing the end of my elementary years, and sounds just about right!
One last thing to mention .... the smell! Wikipedia reminds us that "the aroma of pages fresh off the Ditto Machine was a memorable feature of school life for those who attended in the ditto machine era. A pop culture reference to this is to be found in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. At one point a teacher hands out a dittoed exam paper and every student in the class immediately lifts it to his or her nose and inhales."
Breath deeply! To quote Nellie Furtado, "Why do all good things come to an end?"
1 comment:
I love this walk down memory lane! Get this, since my dad was a teacher we used to have TONS of the ditto copies lying around our house. He brough them home to use as scratch paper, to color on the back of and such. I remember most of the copies were of basketball plays: X's and O's. Isn't that funny?!
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