ditto: [17] Ditto is a precisely parallel formation to English said ‘aforementioned’ (as in ‘the said John Smith’). It is the Tuscan dialect version of Italian detto, which comes from dictus, the past participle of Latin dīcere ‘say’ (source of English dictionary and a vast range of related words). It was originally used in Italian to avoid repeating the name of the month when giving a series of dates, much as inst and ult are used in commercial English. => diction, dictionary
