(1)(Br) Glossary for the LNWR Society--More generally, at any junction the most important through line is the main line and any line off it a branch....
www.lnwrs.org.uk/Glossary/glossarybr.php

(2) Golf glossary: Information From Answers.comGolf glossary This is a list of common golfing terms. ... Through line: When putting, the imaginary path that a ball would travel on should the putted ball
www.answers.com/topic/golf-glossary



(3) Glossary--....THROUGH-LINE: Unifying element of a scene, act or play. ...
www.redbirdstudio.com/AWOL/terms.html

I'm not sure the Democrats are much better....but their historic through-line is better--Jim Webb, apostate from GOP to Dems-- TIME Mag, quoted by Joe Klein

This more general usage extended from meaning (3) is a new one on me and in spite of Gits confirming it, I can't find it in the usu dictionaries. Either it's very obscure or very new, or somehow it has escaped notice. Anyone know for sure

Thanks all

quote:

(3) Glossary--....THROUGH-LINE: Unifying element of a scene, act or play. ...

This meaning, in the context of drama, goes back to Stanislavski (died 1938), and accordingly is not new.

You ask when it spread beyond drama, and you give one example of such an extension. But that seems an isolated instance, not a broad extension of meaning. That is, I don't find many instances where the term was used, in this sense, outside the context of theater or other arts (narrative literature, musical themes, etc.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wordnerd,

Further to my above post:

Google-news currently has 27 hits for "through-line" in this sense (as opposed to "drive-through line", etc.)

One of the 27 is the one you mention, Dale. All 26 others are in the context of the arts. A bit of detail:

• a trough-line that spoofs “War of the Worlds,” and it doesn’t work ...
• an edgy through-line intersecting most of rock's classic revolutionary movements
• Carol Channing … gave us a picture of the through-line of the piece
• despite a nice psychological through-line of Zoe attempting to find renewed ...
• "Dispatches" is rife with painful passages … "At this age, I see a lot more of a through-line through all these experiences … "
• Do you see a through line between this movie and some of the other films you've done
• Festival honors women in the arts … Every presentation we wanted had a through line of sorts and just merged into celebration of women
• For … theater here in the 1980s and '90s, AIDS formed a major, oscillating through-line.
• For overall through line and pacing reasons, some of these sequences were cut or shortened.
• his crusade makes for a good through-line for the film. ...
• It stayed with me after the film was over because there’sa psychological through-line in the story
• most compelling through line is Franklin's patient and almost subtle detailing of the rise of …
• my editor and publishers were treating it more like a memoir, I decided to approach it that way and tied the pieces together, creating an arc and a through line ...
• the book doesn't have a strong through-line
• The obsessive hunt for a kidnapped frontier girl (eventually, Natalie Wood) is the through-line,
• the play, with many flashes of radiance but a subtle through-line, …
• the play's secondary emotional through-line. ...
• The real story, the main through-line, deals with Superman's angst ...
• the sampling … is full of dizzy jumps that elude a coherent through line
• the show has a through-line
• The thematic through-line is love
• the 'through line' of the relationship of those two guys.
• The through-line is hats. Hats become a metaphor through which the story is told..
• there has been a through-line in Escovedo’s songs that always said to keep searching
• “We use the object as the through line,” Slade said. The fourth season will begin …
• what the episode focuses on. [It] gives a better through line throughout the season that way.

nerd: Thank you. I admire and envy your patience to perform that task, while you have helped immensely with precisely what I needed

It will be interesting to follow the Webb usage, as once it has been cited by Time Mag, I would expect it to proliferate within short order

Anyone else having heard or employed this usage is welcome to comment

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dalehileman,