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 with it, and it’s pretty obvious as to why: it sounds like business is being done. We’re both looking at the same document, presumably, so we have to make sure we are both looking at the same page in order to make sure we’re talking about the same idea.

Although literally reading from the same page at the same time is uncommon today—kids don’t usually share textbooks in person, and most reading is on screens anyway—it wasn’t always like this. Paper and writing were much more scarce and precious even a hundred years ago, and vastly more so five hundred years in the past. Prior to Gutenberg’s printing press, anything written on paper was immensely valuable.

Today, when we say we want to be on the same page, we generally mean that we should be considering the same idea at the same time.

“Seeing eye to eye" is even older, and it’s most often traced all the way back to the book of Isaiah, appearing both in the Hebrew Tanakh and in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye…

This invokes something a little more profound than simply looking at the same piece of paper. Here, you’re looking into someone’s eyes, implying a much greater level of understanding.

Looking into another person’s eyes is often a way to determine whether they’re telling the truth about something, or to figure out how the person actually feels. It’s ancient and profound, and really different than “on the same page” in so many ways.

And yet… the two phrases mean exactly the same thing today.

The phrase "on the same wavelength" is the new kid on the block in our trio of synonymous metaphors.

During the roaring 20s in America, radio became unbelievably popular. Less than 1% of homes had radios at the start of the decade, and over 60% had them by the end of it.

Suddenly, people were talking about specific wavelengths that individual radio stations would use to broadcast. If you wanted to listen to a particular show, you would need to tune your radio in to the right wavelength.

Today, we call where you tune your radio dial a station, but that’s only because each station uses its own wavelength. If two different stations were broadcasting on the same wavelength, they’d end up interfering with one another.

It’s easy to understand why this phrase became popular, and I think it’s clear why it became synonymous with seeing eye to eye and being on the same page.

Are there any turns of phrase you can think of that mean the same thing as these three phrases? How about any other phrases that mean the same thing now, but had very different meanings in the past? Let me know!