On the Same Page

Seeing eye to eye. Being on the same page. On the same wavelength.

These phrases all mean the same thing, but if you take the phrases literally, they’re all very different. This sort of linguistic trick happens every now and then, where two phrases (or words) come to be synonymous by way of a secondary meaning for both terms.

This is a little like the trick in math where you say x = y and y = z, so x = z. You need to know that y = z, or the whole thing just falls apart and doesn’t make any sense (meaning: you can’t see how x equals z).

I use metaphors all the time in my writing. That’s because I’m trying to understand something (and hopefully help you understand it, too!), but sometimes the best way to do this is to see it through an existing lens, imperfect as it may be.

Here’s a thing, I say. It’s kind of like this, but not really, and here’s where the differences are.

“On the same page” became prominent during the 20th century. Businesses in particular picked up the phrase and ran …