Phrases that announce ‘I’m lying‘ | Hacker News Reader

Phrases that announce ‘I’m lying‘

boston.com

109 pointsrobg66 comments

Calling these "lying qualifiers" seems a bit excessive.

"To be honest", for example, is extremely common and doesn't all that often precede lies, despite its face value meaning. Sure, sometimes it precedes a lie, but then, so does the word "the". For example, "Look, to be honest, I really don't know why the server crashed yet, but I'll do what I can to find out." This is a sentence that many who run startups will have uttered at one point in their life without any intention of misleading anyone.

Even the "ultimate but-head" that the author presents, "I'm not saying that...", which he implies means "I'm pretending that I'm not saying that...", is not at all such a clear case. "I'm not saying that X" can and often does mean, very simply, that you want to be clear where your next statement stops. For example: "I'm not saying that the deal is off, but we're going to have to really work on clauses 3 and 4 before we can move forward." or even, more melodramatically, "I'm not saying that you murdered her, I really don't think there's enough evidence to make such a case at this point, but the evidence really doesn't look great for you right now."

Seeing as the author is clearly quite knowledgeable about words and their meanings, the question is, then, why is she making such a flimsy case? The answer is, perhaps, to be found in the conclusion:

Please don’t take this the wrong way — and really, I hate to say it — but the true audience for the but-head may not be our listeners, but ourselves.

It depends a lot on the context. If I'm talking to a good friend and start off something with "I hate to say it but..." or "I don't mean to offend, but..." then chances are, yeah, I'm not lying. I really don't want to have to say it, but they're my friend and there's something I think needs to be said because they need to hear it. It doesn't mean I secretly want to offend them. It means "the truth hurts sometimes, and I don't want to hurt you because you're my friend, but because you are my friend, I feel I have a responsibility to tell you." It's nothing less than I would expect from them.

I think the author isn't saying "These words always mean someone is lying" as much as she's saying "When people hear these words, they tend to assume you're lying". Yeah, some of them might be stretching it, but I think the author's basic point is right on.

For instance, when you say "I'm not saying that you murdered her, I really don't think there's enough evidence to make such a case at this point, but the evidence really doesn't look great for you right now", you might mean that seriously. However, if I heard that phrase my first thought would be "He/she thinks I killed her..."

I agree with your entire post, but...[1]

I'm not saying that the deal is off, but we're going to have to really work on clauses 3 and 4 before we can move forward.

I interpret that statement as "unless you come my way on clauses 3 and 4, the deal is off."

For me, it's hard not to read two statements, joined with a 'but', and not interpret the first statement as a 'lie'.

[1] irony intended

How about something like: I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the movie, but the action scene was a bit over the top

Exactly.

I'd read this as; the person actually did enjoy the movie .. but could have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so OTT. No deception involved.

To read this kind of thing, it's always important to think about what the person's intent is. If someone's behaving in a Machiavellian way, it's _all_ about intent (and possible incentive).

I would just say, "The action scene was a bit over the top." If the person hears that and thinks I didn't like the movie, that's their mistake. Your first phrase still leaves the door open for you not liking the movie and it adds no clarifying information.

When someone prefixes a sour message with a positivei qualifier, the intent isn't to lie, but to reassure you.

If I plainly stated "We're going to have to work on clauses 3 and 4 before we can move forward," you may believe that the issues with these clauses are more severe than I actually believe them to be. Or you may believe that my patience has run out. The qualifier "I'm not saying the deal is off" is intended to express a sense of furthered interest in making the deal work. I "invested" more in my statement as a gesture of good will. An indication that I'm not being dismissive. Have you ever had someone ask you why you were "being so short"? Brevity shows a lack of interest or patience.

It's called subtlety, and it seems lost on a lot of people these days.

Actually putting, "I'm not saying the deal is off..." makes me think the deal might be off if I don't 3 & 4. Your other statement, without the qualifier, simply makes me think we need to work on 3 & 4.

The qualifier in this case seems to be an attempt to prime the listener with the fact that this deal is not a sure thing still.

And people are misunderstood all the time. You'll read in to it whatever you want to, but it won't change the way I feel when I say it. It's your job, as the listener, to judge the way I mean it. The simple fact that I have said it doesn't make it one way or the other. Those who are adept at these types of judgements are the ones who move deals forward. Those who cannot get stuck in a cycle misinterpretation that results in a failure to negotiate an agreement.

This isn't an example of a lie, it's an example of a threat.

While these phrases are used to lie and to say two different things that are in conflict with each other, it's possible to believe something even though you have reservations about it.

Maybe if you're absolutely certain about everything you can recoil in horror at ever using a qualifier, but some people aren't opposed to admitting that they're not really sure about things, even if those things are the way they feel about something.

I'm not saying that I agree with the OP, but aren't "rules" like this really heuristics? Psychological tricks like this, if they're effective (and joking aside, I really have no opinion on their efficacy), would be useful in situations where you wonder if the other person is lying. That is, they're clues when you're already on the alert.

If you're talking collaboratively to someone about the cause of a server crash, or engaged in a friendly conversation about a movie, you're not on guard. If you were a manager talking to two employees about a sexual harassment allegation, though, you might want all the tools you could muster.

Although, as I wrote about the OP's tells not being applicable to friendly conversation I realized that the most egregious liar I've ever known was my best drinking buddy in college. The more beer he drank, the more outrageous (and hilarious) his tales would get.

But he always telegraphed when he had stepped firmly onto terra fantasia with the phrase "Guys... without a WORD of a LIE I was on the bus last week when this doberman pincer came on..." etc.

We never called him on it though, because we were afraid he would stop.

Your example usage of "to be honest" is not of the same kind as the "to be honest" described in the article. In "Look, to be honest, I really don't know why the server crashed yet" the TBH serves to assure the listener that you're giving the truth even when you'd benefit from a lie. The article describes usage of TBH that ostensibly serves to inform the listener that you're about to give them the truth even though it might be painful to say and hear, but actually serves as as justification to say something intentionally painful.

Compare "Look, to be honest, I really don't know why the server crashed yet" to "Look, to be honest, that dress does make you look fat".

This is an awful article. The title is linkbait and the opinions offered are given with little contradictory evidence.

Anticipating what somebody's response might be -- "you hurt my feelings!" or "You're lying" -- is part of human communication. Why have three exchanges when I can just anticipate your response and cover the most likely mistakes you might make? Moves the conversation along faster.

They also serve a critical role in the emotional nature of discourse. If I say, "To be honest", I am preparing the listener for something that might be more blunt than they are prepared to hear. "No offense, but" gets the reader ready to hear something they may find offensive. It's not that I am being disingenuous. Far from it. I'm simply trying to apply a little balm before the burn comes.

In life we have to say things to people that they may not want to hear. It is critically important that we learn how to "do the dance" with throwaway words and phrases like this in order that we can give -- and get -- information we may find hard to digest. Yes, you can pull out a broad brush and say it's lying, but you're entirely missing the point of such phrases by doing so.

Written communication to some degree mirrors vocal communication. We will always have a need to help each other emotionally as we talk about important things. Calling each other liars because the literal meanings of phrases don't exactly match up with the intention of the speaker is to confuse the practice of language with the semantic meaning of the words, something any linguist worth his salt should know not to do.

Fun 1-month social experiment

Carry around a notepad.

Week 1: Every time you say "but", make a mark. Don't try to change anything, just keep track.

Week 2: try to not say "but", ever.

For weeks 3 and 4, do the same thing, but with commas.

Periods are more powerful than commas.

Weak: "Look, to be honest, I don't know why the server crashed, but I'm doing what I can to find out."

Strong: "I don't know why the server crashed. I'm working on finding out."

Weak: "I'm not saying the deal's off, but unless we can sort out clauses 3 and 4, I don't see how we can move forward."

Strong: "Clauses 3 and 4 are blockers. I would like to figure them out so we can move forward."

Weak: "I'm not saying your brother is fat or lazy, just that he could do with some more exercise and maybe get a job."

Strong: "Your brother is fat and lazy. He should get a job and lose weight."

Weak: "I know it's none of my business, but she could do a lot better."

Strong: "I don't like her boyfriend. Luckily we're grownups and don't have to agree on everything."

For every person who is shocked and offended by this approach, two people will respect and trust you for it. It's a net win.

Please don't call someone fat and lazy, even if it is more direct. People respond better to courteousness than rudeness.

I often wonder if it is this attitude that has caused the rise in fat and lazy people.

I'd sooner blame the "choices" of food we eat.

But people often do not care enough to change their "choices", even when the negative results are obvious. There must be a reason for that.

Yes, i'm pretty sure being courteous is what causes people to become fat and lazy. It has nothing to do with diet, exercise or a sedentary lifestyle.

The first thing that happens when you start being honest is that you realize what a dick you really are. Once you see that, you get to change it, instead of hiding it like all the sleepwalkers.

A few years ago I started almost universally replacing the word "but" with the word "and" in conversations. This word substitution has the added benefit of sometimes just causing me to not say what I was going to say. If something does not sound right with this word substitution that is an indication that what I was going to say was unnecessary.

I don't think this article is making a claim about whether or not these phrases indicate that someone is about to lie to you.

The phrases themselves are often untrue.

For example, if I say "It’s not about the money, but...", what follows is not necessarily a lie. What the article claims is that I'm about to make an argument based on money and that I'm trying to preemptively deflect any counter-argument. Therefore, the phrase "It’s not about the money, but..." may, strictly speaking, become untrue. But that doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what follows.

In that case it's a very badly titled piece.

The article overreaches. It's like complaining about greetings. When I ask "How are you?", it doesn't imply that I don't care, even when I don't. I am not lying, I am observing social convention (being polite).

Social convention requires us to use "softeners" that indicate the speaker is aware that the listener has an independent feelings and opinions. It is not required that the speaker sincerely and deeply care.

True lies (nice phrase?) are more manipulative. They are more confident and attempt to limit the range of acceptable responses. Most of the ones cited don't.

Not quite related, but fun: sometime ago I figured out that if you say to someone the phrase "I sometimes lie", they know with 100% certainty that you're telling the truth.

Just the other day I was in a line at Sears' automotive department. There was a lady in front of me who had brought in a dead battery. She was about to leave it with the Sears guy when the man behind me said to her, "It's none of my business, but there are terminals attached to that battery that you might need when you put the new one back in the car" (or something like that). He was right, and they were grateful to him for pointing it out. I thought it was an interesting politeness, actually, that he prefaced his comment as he did. In his place I would probably have started out with "Excuse me, ...", which I don't think is wrong, but his more elaborate intro perhaps made it clearer that he knew he was butting in, albeit with the clear intent to be helpful.

My favourite used by any tech PR - "we don't have anything to announce right now, but..."

I believe that for non-naive English speakers like me these "I'm lying" phrases are very annoying. Mainly because we still translate sentences into our own mother language (or some kind of proto-language) and then try understand the meaning.

For example, "Look, to be honest.." - what does it mean? You were not honest before? Or "I'm not saying..." - but you are saying? Why do you need that introduction? What do you want to communicate with that?

I believe that native English speakers swallow and ignore these phrases more easily.

Am I wrong here? Do other non-native English speakers feel the same?

True, very true. (Although I would change "naive" into "native" in your first sentence. Or otherwise I completely misunderstood you.)

It's nice that someone is actually pointing them out, not that most people don't already know that these statements are but-heads to begin with. Everyone knows "I'm not racist, but..." is followed by a racist statement. So the article in and of itself is essentially nothing more than blogspam.

What would be nice is if they provided some counter-interjections to use right after someone uses a statement like this. If someone says "I'm not saying X, but..." it would be nice to know a polite and decisive way to respond with "Oh yes you are".

The article does do that. Towards the middle of it.

---

Once someone has said “It’s (really) none of my business, but...” it’s entirely permissible (if slightly rude) to reply “You’re right, it is none of your business.” It’s also reasonable to reply “Well, then, don’t!” to someone who says “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, but...”

---

That doesn't work as well for others, Imagine "I am not racist but ... " <interrupt> "Oh, but you are racist". So now you accused someone of being a racist. Sure you have stood up and called them on their racism, but you also created an enemy. Sometimes it is worth it, sometimes it isn't. Depending on the situation.

Or for example "To be perfectly honest ... " <interrupt> "Oh but you are not honest". Well now you are the one accusing them of dishonestly simply because they started the phrase with a stupid "but-head".

I think the point of the article is that some such phrases should raise red flags. They are not 100% proofs of lying or deceit.

There are many things we say in our daily language that are either pointless or contradictory. This article talks about "but-head" sentence prefixes. Another example would be disingenuous greetings, such as asking "how's life?", "how's your day been?", etc, even though we don't really care. Proof that we don't care: The way people get uncomfortable when someone actually honestly answers "actually my day's been terrible because of A, B, C ...".

This article raises some interesting points that I've thought of myself sometimes. Before reading this article, I had made the assumption that it was just protocol. I assumed that there was something ... missing in the English language: Often times, when we use such set expressions, we're actually trying to convey some sort of emotion rather than the actual message of the words. "Hey how's it going" is actually suppose to mean "I am acknowledging your presense, and may or may not wish to engage in conversation with you unless your mood complements mine...".

After reading this article, I can't help but find myself agreeing with the author. A lot of these are nothing but self-serving converstation fillers. Unfortunately, I can't think of any alternatives besides downright bluntness ...

They didn't cover this one, which I think is pretty common as well:

"You're probably going to [exaggerate other person's negative reaction], but..."

This will usually dampen the other person's negative reaction. You've presumed the person will react unfavorably to whatever it is you're about to say. You, in a way, have suggested the person will have a bias to be negative, before you've even stated anything.

No one likes to hear that about themselves, so people will tend to overcompensate by being even more dispassionate than they normally are. Before anything is ever said.

"You're probably going to hate me for saying this, but..."

"You're going to think this is silly, but..."

"You're going to think I'm a jerk, but..."

I think in each case, you'll find the listener consciously or subconsciously suppress their reactions so as to not to come off as hating the other person, or thinking they are silly or a jerk.

That these qualifiers are always bad is a pretty aggressive conclusion. A linguistic signal that you are about to disagree with someone is often useful as it takes the edge off a statement that would otherwise seem overly combative. However, this is probably highly cultural thing. I am British and I work in London. My German friend found it hard here at first because he would be too direct and people would perceive it as rude. He used to find it difficult to get people to do things for him and had to adjust the way he used the language. Having said that, it's true British people can take too long to get to the point :-)

This reminds me of "Sorry-buts"...

When someone almost always says "I'm sorry, but..." they are never usually that sorry. I've noticed these phrases often used by those who have a hard time taking responsibility for their actions or failures.

I'm sorry, but I just don't agree...

But I don't believe that you're really sorry. You just found a convenient way to use the phrase in an attempt to refute my point.

Oh but I wasn't really sorry, and I do agree with your comment. "Sorry - buts" are almost always a way of being able to say "ohh but I didn't mean to get on your nerves", and of course, that's what I meant to do! :) Cheers.

This is a common mistake to make when you don't really understand how language works. The dictionary definitions (or 'meanings') of words are mostly irrelevant. The only purpose of words is to link a signifier to a mental construct. All the phrases listed in the article are not used as phrases (related signifiers), but as whole signifiers. The dictionary meanings of the individual words in the phrases, along with what those related meanings would imply for the phrase as a whole, are irrelevant to the rest of the sentence, and only serve to provide historical context.

What he classifies as "lying qualifiers" seem to me often just used to soften what follows the "but", and has become the standard: we are so much used to this that the impression it would make without these "softeners" would be of a rude remark.

Although the message we want to convey, plainly and in all honesty, is "I think X", the standard approach is that we want to avoid giving this impression and say "I don't want to be rude, but I think X", whose effect on the other person is "I think X".

These statements aren't really lies. They are ways to indicate that you aren't trying to start a fight with the bad news you have. Try not using them for a week, without being a passive aggressive non-confrontationalist.

With winning phrases like "Your feet smell", "You aren't up to it", and "I don't like those black kids who are picking on my kid at school" you might re-consider the value of these statements.

Or generally, only add meaningful words. A "to be honest" or "in fact" can be removed without changing the sentence. Brevity is nice.

Yes, although, I do find that those words do help make certain statements more convincing to those that read them -- without need for evidence.

And my problem with society is that people are so easily convinced.

Only add meaningful words. A "to be honest" or "in fact" can be removed. Brevity!

Remove meaningless words such as "to be honest" or "in fact". Brevity!

Brevity!

That's not really true. If they could be added or removed without changing the sentence, then you wouldn't be suggesting their removal.

"To be honest" and "in fact" do change the meaning of the sentence, just in subtle ways. The question isn't a black and white "add meaning" versus "doesn't add meaning", the question is what is the actual effect of using those idioms.

"Adds meaning that distracts from the point you ostensibly want to make" would be more accurate.

In my experience they vary considerably across languages and cultures. I suspect they are important language constructs in cultures that aren't inherently blunt. For example, as a British English speaker expressions like "I'm sorry to make a fuss, but..." are there not to enable lying but to express humility.

Sometimes. There's always exceptions of course.

And nothing says "this is a desperate grab for page views" like unnecessarily splitting your article into 3 pages.

Love this. Perhaps the best response should be to respond with the exact phraseology just used, e.g. to "Don't take this the wrong way, but ..." followed by some negative personal criticism you could reply with "Don't take this the wrong way, but now I really want to punch you."

"We'd like to pay you for this but ..."

'With all due respect', does usually come with the caveat that no respect is deserved.

I was hoping this would cover "Are you calling me a liar?" which seems to be a euphemism for "I dare you to explicitly accuse me of lying so I can change the subject" used by people who are lying.

"I'm not a racist, but..."

If they forgot to include that disclaimer beforehand:

"...but I've got (insert ethnic group) friends, you see."

"...when I was in 3rd grade."

Really, if there were a point to the essay, she might have included "I'm not prejudiced, but..." after which some feel free to let go with remarks to give Ben Tillman pause.

Anecdotely, I have attempted this with my girlfriend on several occasions, using the phrase, "Don't be offended, but..."

I can confirm it does not work.

So a phrase including a "but" will be contrary. Got it.

I'm going to start using some of this "inappropriately" and see what happens.

I'm not racist but it's cold in here.

lol, if you tried you could find racism in lots of innocent sentences prefixed with that.

I think for that you want "but it's a bit nippy in here".

These are very passive agressive and emotionally manipulative. I'm glad that they're being called out in this article.

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