
Phrases that announce ‘I’m lying‘ - robg
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/11/14/i_hate_to_tell_you/?p1=Upbox_links
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swombat
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._

~~~
dboyd
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

~~~
dkersten
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_

~~~
lwhi
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).

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DanielBMarkham
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.

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IsaacSchlueter
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.

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

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

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

~~~
Evgeny
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.

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mark_l_watson
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.

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Locke
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.

~~~
aditya42
In that case it's a very badly titled piece.

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T_S_
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.

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cousin_it
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.

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ScottBurson
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.

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

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sdizdar
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?

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

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electromagnetic
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".

~~~
rdtsc
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.

------
kentosi
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
...

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sbaqai
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.

------
willyt
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 :-)

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jonpaul
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.

~~~
sp4rki
I'm sorry, but I just don't agree...

~~~
jonpaul
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.

~~~
sp4rki
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.

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Qz
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.

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merraksh
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".

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wisty
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.

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

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

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

------
JofArnold
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.

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

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CallMeV
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."

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

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

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jj_aa
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.

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

~~~
noarchy
If they forgot to include that disclaimer beforehand:

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

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

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julius_geezer
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.

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chopsueyar
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.

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

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konad
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.

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

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

