1011. This week, we look at language patterns that may indicate someone is lying, such as how often they say "um" and the diversity of the words they use. Then we tease out the difference between being legendary, famous, infamous, and notorious.
1011. This week, we look at language patterns that may indicate someone is lying, such as how often they say "um" and the diversity of the words they use. Then we tease out the difference between being legendary, famous, infamous, and notorious.
The "language of lying" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of this story originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find her at valeriefridland.com.
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References for the "Linguistics of Lying" segment
Arciuli, J., Mallard, D., and Villar, G. (2010). “Um, I can tell you’re lying”: Linguistic markers of deception versus truth-telling in speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31(3), 397–411.
Bond, C., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 214–234.
Hauch, Valerie, Iris BlandĂłn-Gitlin, Jaume Masip, and Siegfried L. Sporer. (2014) Are Computers Effective Lie Detectors? A Meta-Analysis of Linguistic Cues to Deception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19:4, 307-342.
Fuller, Biros, D. P., & Wilson, R. L. (2009). Decision support for determining veracity via linguistic-based cues. Decision Support Systems, 46(3), 695–703.
Verschuere, B., Bogaard, G., and Meijer, E. (2020). Discriminating deceptive from truthful statements using the verifiability approach: A meta-analysis. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 35, 374–384.
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, we're going to talk about whether you can tell people are lying by the language they use and about the difference between being legendary or merely famous.
by Valerie Fridland
Despite our tendency to view public figures with skepticism, some news makers continue to surprise us with the breadth and depth of their lies. Equally disturbing can be how long it takes to uncover the false tales, even when much of what the liars claim should be relatively easy to check. But our tendency to believe what people say is tied to the underlying rules that guide us to be cooperative conversationalists — an important part of civilized society — with most of us assuming that such cooperation includes telling the truth.
Unfortunately, this tendency makes us quite bad at sensing when someone is lying. Research shows that humans perform only slightly better than chance at detecting deception, even with training. And sometimes the news feels like a daily reminder of both our propensity to take people at their word and our failure to detect signs that people are lying.
But the fact that we are not able to recognize it when someone lies doesn’t mean they don’t leave clues to their dishonesty. In that vein, researchers have been trying to determine whether liars — or truth-tellers — have certain linguistic “tells." Can studying language use reveal whether someone is being deceptive?
Well, quite a bit of psycholinguistic research has examined how filled pauses, those "ums" and "uhs" that pop into our speech, happen when our brains are working extra hard as we are constructing sentences or searching for words. And some psychological research suggests that they could also be indicators of how truthful a speaker is being.
People tend to use these filled pauses when they are describing something new, or choosing among competing vocabulary words, or constructing a new sentence — all things we do whenever we have a spontaneous conversation with someone. But when people rehearse or practice what they are planning to say, they typically say "um" and "uh" less often.
So, if we assume liars have rehearsed a lie before telling it, we should expect to see fewer "ums" and "uhs." And flipping that around, unrehearsed speech should have more. Since people often perceive filled pauses as a sign someone is less certain about what they are saying, liars might also try to tamp down their "ums" and "uhs" so they do not sound unsure about what they are claiming. On the other hand, the greater cognitive load of having to monitor your responses more when you're lying, to make sure something inconsistent doesn’t slip out, could lead to liars using more filled pauses.
Though a number of studies have reported a significant relationship between the use of filled pauses and truth-telling, they have not been consistent in the direction of the findings, with some research finding that liars use fewer filled pauses and others finding they use more. Much of this inconsistency appears to be related to what researchers called a filled pause (some studies group filler words such as "like" with filled pauses) and what kind of lie is being told (for example, were they looking at a spontaneous lie which would require more cognitive processing or a rehearsed prefabricated lie?).
Overall, and if narrowed down to the use of just "um," it does seem like people use fewer filled pauses when they're lying compared to when they're telling the truth. Presumably, having practiced a lie before you say it makes you less likely to produce markers of hesitation. This difference in the rate of "um," though, is often very subtle and not a very reliable clue to deception on its own.
Research on deceptive language has also looked at word count and word type as indicators of deception. The assumption is that because lying does not rely on rich encoding of actual experience, lies will be less specific and less descriptive. Also, since liars are attempting to hide their dishonesty, they tend to be less detailed and less wordy. In short, saying less lets you get away with more. In a meta-analysis of studies that looked at things that correlate with deception, the general finding is that liars use fewer words than truth-tellers.
But it seems that liars don’t just use fewer words overall, they also use less diversity in terms of which words they choose. In other words, people telling the truth use more diverse words than those telling lies, a finding that researchers have hypothesized comes from the burden on working memory and increased cognitive load when telling a lie, since your brain is working hard to simultaneously construct the lie and suppress the truth.
Researchers have also looked at how people use words that express certainty and uncertainty. Words such as “always,” “absolutely,” or “never” are more committed and certain than words expressing doubt such as “maybe” or “possibly.” Although you might guess that liars would be less likely to use strong language when what they are saying is false, studies actually suggest that liars tend to use these words more, presumably so they come across as more credible.
A recent meta-analysis also indicated that people telling the truth tend to include more verifiable details than liars (such as being somewhere with witnesses rather than being home alone), since details that can be checked for veracity put liars at risk of being discovered. But depending on the lie, it is not always possible for liars to avoid making verifiable statements and many high-profile liars have learned this the hard way as journalists dug into their stories, finding that the devil was most certainly in the details.
So although research on linguistic signs of deception has turned up some features that do seem to correlate with deception, most are subtle, and results on individual features have not been consistent enough to make for reliable lie detection, at least not by humans. However, computer-assisted detection programs are already being widely developed, relying on multiple cues rather than isolated individual ones, and these have detection rates in the 67% to 74% range. Humans on the other hand, tend to only be able to detect liars around half the time.Â
It seems our very human tendency to intuit and interpret other people's behaviors and motivation gets in our way when assessing truth, and computers, at least for now, don’t seem to have that problem. But can they help with debunking lies told by public figures today? Probably no more than a bit of old-fashioned sleuthing into their backgrounds — still the most reliable lie-detection method of all.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of this story originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find her at valeriefridland.com.
by Mignon Fogarty
A listener named David asked about the difference between describing someone as legendary versus famous.
"Legendary" comes straight to English in the 1300s from a Latin word that meant "pertaining to legends." In Medieval times legends were stories, according to Etymonline, especially stories about the lives of saints that included miracles and wonders. So being a legend or being legendary has always been a good thing and implies there's a story about you that's worth telling.
"Storied" is actually a similar word, also going back to Latin. But the stories don't have to be so grand for something to be storied as they do for it to be legendary. An example from Canadian Geographic in the OED reads, "Manitoba's storied waterway is rich in history and biodiversity."Â
"Famous" came into English in the 1300s too, and also goes back to a Latin word: "famosus," which meant "much talked of" or "renowned." According to Etymonline, Old English had a great word for this that didn't survive: namcuĂ°, which literally meant "name-known." So if you're famous, your name is known and people are talking about you.
And it's kind of wild because the Latin word comes from a Proto-Indo-European root, "bha-" meaning "to speak, say, or tell" that gives us a bunch of words that you'd never guess are related to "famous" including "anthem," "aphasia," "blasphemy," "fairy," "microphone," "professor" … there are just a whole bunch. There are about eighty words. Someone could probably make a poem out of all of them!
Anyway, if I had to describe the difference between being legendary and being famous, I'd say that someone who is legendary is more established and well-known than someone who is famous. "Legendary" suggests a long history of fame with lots of stories to tell. Whereas someone who's famous could have become famous last week.Â
"Legendary" can also be used to describe more literally something from an old legend. "We're reading about the legendary King Arthur," for example. These old legends can be true, but they don't have to be either.
And the phrase "a legend in his own time," which was first seen in 1958 according to Etymonline, nods to the idea that most legends are old and established. If you're a legend in your own time, while you're still alive, well, wow — you're definitely a big deal.
Next, Marcus Charleston, the senior producer of the radio show "All Sides" on WOSU has asked me multiple times to talk about the word "notorious" and how people misuse it to mean something positive. And that follows nicely from "famous" and "legendary."
Unfortunately, I can't completely say it's wrong to use "notorious" to mean "famous" because "notorious" — which, like the others, came to English directly from a Latin word, "notorius"— originally just meant "well-known or commonly known," and that meaning is still in the dictionary.Â
But dictionaries also agree that today, the most common interpretation of the word is negative. In other words, I wouldn't tell Aunt Dorothy her Jell-O salad is notorious if you want to stay on her good side.Â
This "disreputable" meaning emerged back in the mid-1500s. For example, the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for this meaning is from the original Book of Common Prayer from 1549 and refers to "notorious synners."
And I actually can't hear the word "notorious" without thinking of the Grammy-nominated rapper Notorious B.I.G., who died in 1997. He definitely embraced the "infamous" side of the word "notorious" — even the record label that signed him was called Bad Boy Entertainment.
So there you go. "Legendary" means you're established, very famous, and possibly old or dead. "Famous" means your name is known and people are talking about you. And "notorious" is best used to mean something is famous for being bad or disreputable in some way. And of course these words can all apply to places and things as well as people. And thanks to David and Marcus for the questions.
Finally, I have a story from Kristen about two familects — words their family and only their family uses.Â
Hey, Grammar Girl, this is Kristen and I'm from the Midwest. We have two in our family that are weirdly food related. The first one is "fish shapes."
So this came from a time when I was at school going through the announcements and looking at what was gonna be offered in the cafeteria. And the item being offered was called fish shapes, which ended up being like a fish nugget shaped like a fish. When I described this to my husband, he said, let's just use that word for whenever you're confused by something, and you feel like you should understand it, but you just don't.
So anytime I describe anything to do with, let's say fashion to him, he goes, "That's just fish shapes." So it's a nice little shorthand.
The other one is "chicky bits," which is our word for chicken nuggets or chicken tenders, period. This also comes from a time when we were talking about food, and my husband described what he had picked up for dinner. And he said, "I got some chicky bits," and I burst out laughing, and that has been our word ever since.
Thanks so much Kristin! Those are great.
If you have a familect story to share, I'd love to hear it, and now you can send me a voice memo on WhatsApp. The link is in the show notes, and be sure to tell me the story behind your familect and record your message in a nice quiet place. Â
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Morgan Christianson in advertising, Brannan Goetschius, director of podcasts; Dan Feierabend in audio; Davina Tomlin in marketing; and Holly Hutchings in digital operations whose favorite cleaning tool is Mr. Clean magic erasers. They advertised in the show a long time ago, before you started, Holly!Â
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.
The following references for the "lying" segment did not appear in the audio but are included here for completeness.
Arciuli, J., Mallard, D., and Villar, G. (2010). “Um, I can tell you’re lying”: Linguistic markers of deception versus truth-telling in speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31(3), 397–411.
Bond, C., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 214–234.
Hauch, Valerie, Iris BlandĂłn-Gitlin, Jaume Masip, and Siegfried L. Sporer. (2014) Are Computers Effective Lie Detectors? A Meta-Analysis of Linguistic Cues to Deception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19:4, 307-342.
Fuller, Biros, D. P., & Wilson, R. L. (2009). Decision support for determining veracity via linguistic-based cues. Decision Support Systems, 46(3), 695–703.
Verschuere, B., Bogaard, G., and Meijer, E. (2020). Discriminating deceptive from truthful statements using the verifiability approach: A meta-analysis. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 35, 374–384.