what does "dotted line" mean here?

Question

"The management consultant points to a CFO, a highly analytical man, with a dotted-line report who tended to eschew discussion and make quick decisions."

I am a non-native speaker and learning English on my own. I believe "report" means a subordinate, but I just can't seem to guess what "dotted-line" means in this context.

Thanks for your explanation.

Answer 1

The phrase "a dotted-line report" makes absolutely no sense to me (and I've never heard of a subordinate being referred to as a "report"). The way the sentence is written one would assume that the eschewing of discussion and making of quick decisions belongs to this "dotted-line report". Again, I've never seen a person referred to as a "report"---but perhaps this is "new" terminology and means a subordinate to the CFO who, on a flowchart, would be joined to him by a dotted line!



I look forward to your receiving an authoritative response from someone in the field. Whatever it means, it's a very badly-written sentence.

Answer 2

dot is.......................... The decimal separator is a symbol used to mark the boundary between the integral and the fractional parts of a decimal numeral. Terms implying the symbol used are decimal point and decimal comma.Numbers with many digits before and/or after the decimal separator may be divided into groups of three, starting from the decimal separator in both directions. The symbol for this is called the thousands separator or, more generally (see India below), digit group separator. If the decimal separator is a point, the thousands separator is often a comma or a space. The latter is recommended in the SI/ISO 31-0. If the decimal separator is a comma, the thousands separator is often a point or a space. Notations like "12,345", "12.345", "12,345.678", and "12.345,678" are ambiguous if the notational system is not known. Making groups of three digits also emphasizes that there is a base 1000 of the numeral system that is being used. See Decimal superbase When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the Interpunct (·), or to the glyphs 'combining dot above' ( ̇) and 'combining dot below' ( ̣) which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in Eastern European languages and Vietnamese. Usage Language scripts or transcription schemes that use the dot as a diacritic mark: * In IAST and National Library at Calcutta romanization, transcribing Indic languages, a dot below a letter indicates retroflex consonants, while an underdot signifies an emphatic consonant. * Traditional Irish typography, where the dot denotes lenition, and is called a ponc séimhithe 'dot of lenition': ḃ ċ ḋ ḟ ġ ṁ ṗ ṡ ṫ * Lithuanian: ė * Maltese: ċ ġ ż * Polish: ż * In romanizations of Semitic languages, a dot below a consonant is used to indicate the "emphatic version" of that consonant. For example, ṣ represents an emphatic s. In Arabic romanization in particular, ġ stands for the ghayin. * The dot above lowercase i and j (and uppercase İ in Turkish) is not regarded as an independent diacritic, but rather as an integral part of the letter. * Vietnamese. The nặng tone (low, glottal) is represented with a dot below the base vowel: ạ ặ ậ ẹ ệ ị ọ ộ ợ ụ ự ỵ. * In Yoruba, the dot is used below the o, the e and the s: those three letters can also occur without dot as another letter. In mathematics and physics the dot denotes the time derivative as in v=\dot{x}.

Answer 3

The word that goes where the dotted line is can be "no-nonsense."



Report in this sentence refers to the definition: reputation.

Report is also pronounced in this context with a silent "t."

Report: "repor"

The statement is noting that the CFO has a no-nonsense reputation for avoiding

discussion and coming to quick decisions.

Answer 4

The 'dotted line' .............is where people sign contracts or sign off on reports, usually located at the bottom of the contract or report. If someone has a "dotted-line report," then it is really a summation or summary of the actual investigation in the business's ... business!



When someone says, "Cut to the bottom line," that line is often dotted.

Answer 5

By " dotted-line report " it is meant that report is an indirect one ... or we can say it is just to register something to someone otherwise report is for someone else !!

Answer 6

YOU FORGOT TO PUT A COMMA AFTER REPORT.

Report means a document, here.

Dotted line means authentic , reliable, well researched.