Everything about Eavesdropping totally explained
Eavesdropping is the act of surreptitiously listening to a private conversation.
History
Ancient
Anglo-Saxon law punished eavesdroppers, who skulked in the
eavesdrip of another's home, with a fine; the eavesdrip was also sometimes called the eavesdrop, and this word in turn also means a small and not very visible hole near the entrance to a building (generally under the
eaves) which would allow the occupants to listen in on the conversation of people awaiting admission to the house. Typically this would allow the occupant to be prepared for unfriendly visitors.
Techniques
Eavesdropping can also be done over
telephone lines (
wiretapping),
email,
instant messaging, and other methods of
communication considered private. (If a message is publicly broadcast, witnessing it doesn't count as eavesdropping.)
In ancient China, it's said that to prevent eavesdropping when discussing important matters, soldiers would instead draw the
characters on hands or papers. This is where the superstition of the "black dot" on a piece of paper comes from.
The Canadian heroine
Laura Secord is famous for having eavesdropped on the plans of the American army and delivering this information to the British during the
War of 1812.
Eavesdropping in fiction
Eavesdropping is something of a
clichéd
plot device in fiction, allowing the hero or villain to gain vital information by deliberately or accidentally overhearing a conversation. For instance, in "
Letting In the Jungle" by
Rudyard Kipling,
Mowgli overhears the hunter
Buldeo telling some men that Mowgli's adopted mother
Messua is about to be
executed, so Mowgli sets about rescuing her.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Eavesdropping'.
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