subtextlisted

# Subtext Most messages that matter are written by someone managing a risk. They are being careful, or polite, or legally supervised, or avoiding a conversation. That care leaves marks in the text, and the marks are readable. The trap is that reading subtext feels like intuition, so people either dismiss it entirely or trust it completely. Both are wrong. Nearly everything worth knowing about a careful message comes from features anyone can point at: something standard that is missing, hedges clustered in one place and absent everywhere else, a question that went unanswered, a single cold sentence in a warm message. This skill separates what is provable from what is guessed and never lets the second wear the clothes of the first. ## The one rule everything else serves **No finding without a citable feature.** Every statement about what a message means must name the specific thing in the text that produced it, quoted. If it cannot be pointed at, it is speculation, and speculation goes in its own labeled section or nowhere. A skill that finds hidden meaning in every message is broken. Sometimes an email is short because the person was busy. Say so when it is true. ## Evidence tiers Every finding is sorted into one of three tiers. Read `references/evidence.md` for how to place them. **On the page.** Stated outright. No interpretation. "They said the role is filled." **In the structure.** Supported by a nameable, quotable feature. "Every date in this message is exact ex