Anyone who spends a fair amount of time sending and/or receiving emails is no doubt familiar with the initialisms cc and bcc. If you’re not, here’s a brief overview of how they’re used.

任何需要花大量时间收发电子邮件的人都对缩略词cc和bcc 不陌生。如果你还不熟悉，那么本文会简单介绍一下这两个缩略词的含义。

Say you’re emailing Betty to tell her that you and your partner will attend her upcoming picnic, and you also want your partner to know that you’ve RSVP’ed. So you enter Betty’s email address in the ‘To’ box and your partner’s email address in the ‘Cc’ box. That way, your partner will receive the message, too, without feeling obligated to respond. In other words, the cc often functions as an FYI of sorts.

假如你准备给Betty发邮件，告诉她你和你的朋友将参加她安排的野餐，同时你也希望你的朋友知道你回复的这封邮件。那么，你可以在‘To’一栏输入Betty的邮件地址，然后在‘Cc’一栏输入朋友的邮件地址。这样，你的朋友就会收到这封邮件而且无需回复。换句话说，cc的作用相当于供你参考/参阅。

But let’s pretend Betty has a weird obsession with sending chain emails, and you know your partner’s email address will end up on her list if you cc them here. So you enter their email address in the ‘Bcc’ box, instead. They’ll receive your message, but Betty won’t be able to see that you included them. 

现在，让我们假设，Betty有发“连环”邮件的怪癖，而且你知道，如果你在cc一栏输入自己朋友的邮件地址后，Betty也会将你朋友的邮件地址加入自己的联系人清单。那么，你则在‘Bcc’一栏输入朋友的邮件地址。你的朋友们还是会收到信息，但是Betty却无法看到这些收件人。

What Do Cc and Bcc Stand For?

那么Cc和Bcc到底代表什么？

If you’ve heard your coworkers talk about “copying” each other on emails, you can probably guess what one of the c’s in cc stands for. The full phrase is carbon copy, and it predated the arrival of email by decades.

如果你曾经听到同事们谈论在邮件中相互“复制”对方，那么你肯定能猜出其中一个c的含义。Cc的全称为复写（carbon copy），复写要比电子邮件早几十年出现。

At least as far back as the late 19th century, people would insert special carbon paper between sheets of regular paper in their typewriters, allowing them to duplicate a document without typing it multiple times. Eventually, it became common practice to list the recipients of copies next to c.c. so everyone would know who else had read it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known reference to the abbreviation is from a 1936 secretarial handbook—so it was probably in play sometime before then.

早在19世纪末，人们会在打印机的两张纸中间加上一张特殊的复写纸，这样不需要多次打字就可以复制文件。最后，将副本收件人放在c.c.一栏，人们就会知道还有谁会收到这一邮件。根据《牛津英语词典》的解释，第一次提到这个缩写是在1936年的一本秘书手册中-所以，这个缩写很可能在这之前就开始使用了。

Bcc stands for blind carbon copy (an offshoot of the slightly older phrase blind copy). Just like with today’s email versions, the original letter of a blind carbon copy wouldn’t feature a section that named other recipients, so the primary recipient wouldn’t know any copies had been sent.

Bcc代表密件抄送（一个更加古老的短语“秘密抄送”的衍生物）。和今天的电子邮件一样，密件抄送副本的原始文件不会列出其他收件人的名字，因此主收件人不知道已经发送了任何复本。

These days, courtesy copy is sometimes cited as the expression behind cc, rather than carbon copy. While it may not be historically accurate, it is a pretty apt alternative for a custom that no longer involves actual carbon paper.

如今，cc有时会用抄送件（courtesy copy而不是carbon copy）来表示。尽管从历史角度看可能不太正确，但是由于这一惯例不再涉及实际的复写纸，所以这算是一个非常恰当的替代表达。

原文来源：Mental Floss

编辑：上海译锐翻译