You must Sign In to post a response.
  • Category: Miscellaneous

    Reading between the lines is also important

    Reading between the lines is a well-known phrase. In the olden days, communication ways were very less. No phones. Internet or mobile phones. The only way of communication was by sending letters. Letter writing was a regular aspect of those days. They used to convey many issues through these letters only. Even confidential information was also communicated through these letters only. There were no private couriers also those days.

    The chances of information leaking were high. Especially when emergency situations like wars, agitations etc. prevail, the chance of information snatching is high. So to avoid such problems some writers started conveying the messages indirectly using some codes between the lines so that the importance of the message will be known to the intended receiver only. That is how this phrase has entered the vernacular. Understanding the intentions or feelings of the writer by reading their messages even though they will not mention them openly, is called reading between the lines. It is very important these days.

    Generally, we read the messages received from others to understand their opinions, feelings and understandings of various issues. Some people may directly hit upon what they want to convey. But some are not like that. We often will not understand the message from the write-up just by reading once. The messages may be written diplomatically. The reader should figure out the intentions of the writer by reading between the lines. So simple reading may not help us in understanding, we have to apply our mind and read. One should concentrate while reading and try to understand the information that is being conveyed through the write-up. This will help the reader to understand the subject. Such a reader only can become a good learner.


    This is my entry for the contest
    Topic based Thread of the Week contest for Feb '23 -topic- 'Reading'
  • #769965
    The art of writing is in the diminishing stage since this is the era of fast communication with smartphones or chatting with the video calls. Gone are the days when we used to write letters of different shapes and sizes using Post Cards, Inland Letters, Envelopes etc depending upon the length of our contents but unfortunately that system has been redundant these days.
    What the author has indicated that we should not rush to immediate conclusion of the entire facts unless the whole contents are read and understood. He has rightly pointed out that people used to apply some codes in their letters so that the readers could get exact meanings of their explanations.

  • #769980
    This is an interesting post by the author highlighting the meaning of 'between the lines'. When things are communicated in indirect ways or cryptic ways then people have to read in between the lines to decipher the true or correct meaning hidden in those messages.
    One thing which is important in this matter is that sometimes it is not possible to read between the lines because of lack of knowledge in the matter or lack of clarity in the message or communication itself.
    We should also not believe any communication on its face value but try to go deeper and find out what is in between the lines.

    Knowledge is power.

  • #770010
    Literally speaking, the phrase, "to read (reading) between the lines" has its origin long back in the ancient Greece. During those days, communications were limited to written format alone, and mostly the armies needed to communicate at times of emergencies with code words secretly. The secret code words were written using an ink that was invisible on the material that looked like a dried skin of an animal. The secret words that would be written in between the lines could be seen only by heating this paper-like structure or by acid application and could be read between the lines. This is the story of the phrase, "reading between the lines" and has been changed to an idiom in the 18th century. An idiom is a group of words that has a nonliteral meaning as such (the ball is in your court, and it does mean "it is up to you now to decide") and a phrase containing a group of words has a literal meaning (the little girl won the medal against all odds) with no hidden content. Nowadays, this has been mostly used by journalists/media and the Defence Ministry.

    There is also another idiom called, "Reading beyond the lines" that implies relating the message to some irrelevant situation or information, as we all do write now for the topic, "reading."


  • This thread is locked for new responses. Please post your comments and questions as a separate thread.
    If required, refer to the URL of this page in your new post.