Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In paleography and textual criticism:
  • noun Mechanical or unconscious repetition of a series of letters or words in copying a manuscript.
  • noun A passage or reading so originated. Opposed to haplography (which see).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the accidental, erroneous act of repeating a word, phrase or combination of letters by a scribe or copyist.
  • noun the errors produced thereby

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ditto +‎ -graphy

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Examples

  • Its opposite is dittography: the writing twice of what should have been written once, such as ‘critics’ becoming ‘crititics’.

    H is for House : Ange Mlinko : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007

  • I would see "gingerlyly" as a dittography or "dittottography", as some linguists ought not to be able to resist calling it, if they are to be consistent.

    languagehat.com: GINGER(LY). 2004

  • Other slips which always occur in the handing down of manuscripts, such as haplography, dittography, insertion of glosses, transposition, even of entire columns, must also be taken into consideration whilst estimating the text of the Sacred Books.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913

  • The business about haplography and dittography and homoteleuton reminds me of H for Housman as a critic … It’s certainly relevant to our new textual problems – that is, how poems are reproduced on the web.

    H is for House : Ange Mlinko : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007

  • 2 Chu Tzu-wen (before 1198) suggested that the repetition of "his family" [omission: Chinese characters] and of "the King of Hans" [omission: Chinese characters] is due to dittography.

    The History of the Former Han Dynasty 1938

  • 1 Wang Hsien-ch'ien notes that [omission: Chinese characters] is here a superfluous interpolation and dittography; SC 8: 25a has this sentence without this character.

    The History of the Former Han Dynasty 1938

  • 2 Wang Hsien-ch'ien remarks that the word [omission: Chinese characters] is redundant; the SC and the Han-chi do not have it; it is a dittography for the next occurrence of this word.

    The History of the Former Han Dynasty 1938

Comments

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  • An interesting word for a certain kind of mistake occasionally encountered in occasionally encountered in medieval manuscripts manuscripts and on the Web.

    May 19, 2015

  • Kamehameha, king of Hawaii,
    Declined to sup on simple ahi.
    It's shrewd lexicography
    To spot the dittography
    And divine he would eat mahimahi.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    October 11, 2015