Something that has really started to annoy me lately is when people routinely "improve on the truth" in order to impress others.

Like when somebody said recently that "I get to work so incredibly fast, it just takes me ten minutes by subway!" and I happen to know that that particular trip takes around 20 minutes, which is also fast considering how far out they live but nowhere near as fast as they claimed. In other words, it's not really a lie, but it's not the truth either.

Or like the other day when somebody said that Bill Gates is worth 100 billion dollars. I mean, we already know that Gates is superrich so why does this person have to double old Bill's fortune when telling a story? (and I know that they weren't just misinformed)

The result of this kind of behaviour is that I will take everything they say with a grain of salt, and thereby never get impressed by anything they say since I can't be sure it's the real truth. And since truth improvements are so extremely common, I've started to appreciate actual truth tellers so much more, and started praising them for it as if it was something one didn't have the right to expect of people! It's weird and backwards.

What do you think about this? Any experiences or anecdotes? Do the truth improvers you know do it routinely or just occasionally?

I have an old friend that did this relentlessly, to the point I really didn't believe him ever about anything anymore.

that shit annoys me too. Ive been in the mind set that it was just a common american way of life. a bunch a fuckin liars

I know a compulsive liar

Ribbed4UrPleasure said:

Oh so europeans never make misinformed statements, that in itself is a truth improvement.

I think it's a pattern of speech, rather than a chronic dependency on lying.

Sometimes when I want to express something numerically, to give somekind of indication of the magnitude in question, I throw in some arbitrary number. This number is meant to be out of proportion so that its nature should by apparent, but might not appear to be so for the listener (say, "that thing costs like 500 euros!", when it really costs 300). That thing used to happen all the time at my old workplace - in a professional environment aritmetic expressions are commonly used to signify expertise on the subject matter. This transmits to everyday type of speech as well, you feel the need to validate your statement with a numeric figure.

It's a sign of uncertainty in the end.

novabrkr said:

Nah, for it to be a simple figure of speech, then the exaggeration has to be much worse than that. It's one thing to say "I finished my homework in 0.1 seconds" and another altogether to say "I finished my homework in 10 minutes" when it actually took 20 minutes. The former is a clear figure of speech whereas the latter is a truth improvement.

CarrieMpls said:

I know the type.

It's really sad, because their semi-lies or truth improvements are so unnecessary! They must be really insecure to feel the need to do that.

.

BlueOrchid said:

That's something different though. At least when they're flat out lying you can usually tell. If they're improving on the truth though, which is more subtle, they can often fool people around them. So annoying.

retina said:

Sometimes i can tell when he is lying, sometimes i can't..it's very hard to trust him.

What I really hate is people with no sense of time.
You set a time with them, and they're late. then you call them and they say "oh, we're just 2 minutes away" yet they are either much further away, or having a break from driving, and that's why they're not actually there after 2 minutes.

retina said:

Well, a "truth improvement" you are describing here is a relatively regular pattern of speech for many individuals. That is because you cannot always instantly measure the full scale required for estimation of the phenomenon voicing a phrase during conversation, hence you would choose an arbitrary number from a natural scale that would seem fitting. Decision-making is not a terribly fast process for all people. You need to impress the others with your knowledge of the subject, yet you have no time to perform a calculation during forming sentences.

Numbers are commonly used for validation, because they are the only common linguistic phenomenon where the concept of "truth" is applicable (they have no semantic reference when used alone, and when used together with named instances they appear to have "truth value" because of this trait). The arithmetization of reality is a psychological need for finding a valid form of correspondence between the utterances of different individuals participating in conversation. In short - numeric expressions are commonly used to connote a more "truthful" depiction of the situation, even if the person to voice such statements would not necessarily be perfectly aware of the exact figures. Hence a seeming improvement on them, it simply connotes the "truthful" magnitude of the situation which is not tantamount with any mathematical validity concerning the statement. The statement "he is very rich" is not an expression that would operate directly within the systematic truncation of Truth (formalization of any kind, including numerical expressions), but the expression "he has 100 billion dollars" contains in itself a direct truth component (it is expressed within a calculatable format). So yes, it's still a lie, but a different kind of lie from the regular ones that we classify as lies.

... should I go to sleep already?

karmatornado said:

damn you beat me to the punch

novabrkr said:

If you think you're impressing anybody then you are definitely mistaken. You make yourself seem pathetic when you get lost in your own murky statements like this. I've warned you about that before though, so suit yourself.

Once and for all (and please pay attention now, because this is a lesson in how to express yourself clearly): I am not talking about making an estimation, nor am I talking about figure of speech or rhetoric of any kind. That is something completely different. I am talking about knowingly improving the truth in order to make what you're saying seem more impressive.

It's simple really.

retina said:

Don't pretend to be more mature than you actually are. There is nothing "murky" about that, so you don't need to "warn" anybody. If you don't understand it, fine. It's very basic language theory. However, please pay attention to the use of the word "pathetic" when addressing other individuals though. I guess you should know that already.



There is no difference. Thank you for your attention. Good night.

novabrkr said:

You obviously don't get it.
Hopefully you like your own little world because I'm sure you'll never break out of it.
Good night to you too.

I responded to a forum topic, used Wikipedia as a reference and rather than type the whole darn thing out, condensed the gist of it and linked the actual article. Someone implied I'd distorted the info. I hadn't.
I simply threw up my hands and thought: "Forget it !"
Some people have their own agenda.

I agree, man. Hyperbole annoys me so much I pulled out all my hair over it this morning for the millionth time...

xplnyrslf said:

I'm not talking about people who fail to be absolutely accurate, that is only human. I'm talking about people who knowingly enhance the truth in order to impress others, and who do so routinely in everyday conversation.

ThreadBare said:

If I didn't know you a bit I would have thought you had misuderstood what I'm talking about. But as it is now, I take your post as just a lame joke.

Great topic.


Actually the thing that annoys me is when a friend of mine tries to tell a story about me and her or me and him, but he/she either doesn't remember the facts correctly, or he/she exaggerates the event to make it funnier.
To me, you can tell the accounts of same event without exaggerations, and if your delivery is good, folks will still laugh at it. There's no need to reinvent the past for a good joke.

Not sure why this annoys me, though I suspect it's because this is so common in my life. I mean, all my friends exaggerate our stories. If you heard them speak you'd think I was Indiana Jones or some shit.



spelling, grammar, and sexual explicit omission edit
[Edited 3/11/07 19:20pm]

retina said:

thanks...

Imago said:

Exactly! Thank you for understanding Imagoboo.

retina said:

Are you just being nice to me because of my signature?


I'm used to chasing you like a white rabbit and fawning over your emotional distance.

I didn't really see this thread before, but I hate this. I know a few very specific people who do this and they all drive me insane when they do. They'd do just as well without exaggerating so much. It's unnecessary and obnoxious. I read somewhere in a psychology magazine that this behavior is normal for children between ages 9 and 12, approximately. This doesn't bode well for the people I know who do this.

Imago said:

I didn't notice that until now. How long have you had it?

You're my only fan. I can't say that I'm your only fan though, you have plenty.



I'm not emotionally distant, I just suffer from occasional JustErinitis - inability to convey emotion in the posts even though I'm actually sitting here in front of the computer and displaying more emotion than five seasons of the Young and The Restless.

Protege said:

Good point.

Retina, are you on a rant???
I thought I had the market cornered.....

xplnyrslf said:

Nah, I just felt like I was in the twilight zone there for a while when some of you misunderstood my very simple and straightforward topic. I'm okay now though.

retina said: