cc: Carbon Copy ... or Courtesy Copy?

I always used to think cc stood for "courtesy copy" – because you're only sending it to someone for information. It appears I was wrong; but some dictionaries (e.g. Wiktionary) do give "courtesy copy" as an alternative meaning.  Wiktionary implies that this meaning only applies in the context of emails, where the idea of a carbon copy is clearly pointless; but in this instance I am confident that it's Wiktionary that's wrong, as I understood "cc" to mean "courtesy copy" long before I'd even heard of emails. So while I now accept that "cc" stands for "carbon copy", my position on "courtesy copy" is that this has always been an alternative interpretation, but is especially appropriate in the context of emails. In other words: if setting this as a quiz question, I think you should be prepared to accept "courtesy copy" as an answer.

© Haydn Thompson 2017