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Hypothetical Genealogy
Using the "Cc:" field of an email message's header, one can send "carbon copies" of a letter; the same message not only goes to the person appearing in the "To:" field but also to all those listed for the receipt of a copy.
A Thought to be Shared
Marina, a student of the French language, discovered what seemed to be a fatal bug of this Gallic pastoral dialect: not only are the words for (geographical) West -- "ouest" -- and (geographical) East -- "est" -- pronounced similarly, but their spelling is distinguished by merely two characters as well. In a portentous way, the last three characters are the very same for both words!
What if, for example, you want to leave the highway for the Eastern part of Paris -- "Paris Est" -- and see a sign announcing: "PARIS EST"? Right: you exit. Unfortunately, bad luck or a bad idea of some "gamine" (brat) have removed the essential "O" and "U". You find yourself in the wrong, the Western part of Paris and find no more.
A Way to Share it
Of course, Marina had to convey her discovery to some colleagues. Instead of writing seven individual letters to her seven friends, she sent one to all of them, using the "Cc:" field of her email client.
Two of those who got Marina's breathtaking news replied; in doing so, they did not remove the addresses from the "Cc:" field, however -- maybe they just forgot. Thus, everybody also got the replies to Marina's initial letter.
This is how the first mailing list could have been generated. Of course, the "Cc:"-List has many faults which "real" mailing lists try to overcome.
Introduction
Hypothetical Genealogy
Purpose of a Mailing List
