What it is
Removing words from their surroundings so they carry a meaning the speaker did not intend.
In the wild
He called the plan ambitious, ignoring that he then called it doomed.
How to answer it
Ask for the passage before and after the quote.
Attacks on the source
Quoting out of context
Also called Contextomy
In depth
Origin and naming
Also called contextomy — a cutting-out. Journalist Milton Mayer coined the word for the practice he documented in Julius Streicher's 'Der Stürmer', which printed shortened Talmud passages so they appeared to say what they did not. Advertising review blurbs are its everyday form: a pan reduced to 'stunning'.
More places it shows up
A game trailer splashes 'an unforgettable experience' across the screen, cut from a review that continues '— unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.'
A politician's fifteen-second clip of saying 'I am not worried' trends for days; the full sentence was that she was not worried about one minor scenario, and deeply worried about the rest.
A screenshot of a chat circulates at work: 'Fine, let Maria handle everything.' The reply above it, cropped out, was a proposal to rotate on-call duties.
A celebrity's line 'I hate this city' runs as a headline, trimmed from an interview about how much she loves its people but hates its traffic.
How to spot it
- Notice when the quote is too punchy for the occasion it was pulled from.
- Notice when the source is never linked, only screenshotted.
- Notice when reading the sentence before and after reverses the charge entirely.