Line!

When directing actors who are working on getting off book (having learned their lines), I always tell them the only four-letter word they are allowed to use to call for a line is: “Line!”

And speaking of actors and lines, have you ever worked with an actor who memorized their lines so well they can’t vary from the script even if someone else wavers? Either a fellow actor will forget a line, or something goes wildly off the rails, and there’s that one person who bravely continues their lines now out of context because by God that’s what that person memorized.

Which is why we used to say, “learn your lines” not memorize them.

Text scammers make this mistake. They have a script and can not improvise or deviate from it when the person they are texting tries to flip their script. I’ve written about this before, and now here’s another example.

Nothing followed so I thought she was finished, but the next morning she followed up with this:

And she’s back to the script as handed to her. Or “her.” I declined to answer before she suggested we move to WhatsApp so “we could get to know each other more.” As usual.