As a teacher of the "word," I find the recent news headlines in which a prominent person finds him/herself trying to extricate him/herself from the wreckage of simply not telling the truth, be she/he a politician, a convicted criminal or a "player" on a reality show, often hilarious, creative or simply hypocritical.
I give the reader, below, definitions of the word once known as the LIE that has since evolved into the repackaged explanation, MISSPOKE, as if avoiding the words, "I lied..." are somehow mitigated by burying one's falsehood in the word SPOKE, attaching the innocuous and convenient prefix, "Mis-"...
Had I only known the practical value of Latin when I was a kid, getting punished for "lying".
[What once was...] LYING...
the Free Online Dictionary ...
Disposed to or characterized by untruth: a lying witness. See Synonyms at dishonest.lying1. vb. the present participle and gerund of lie1. lying2 ..
[...but now is...] MISSPOKE...
- Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ...
transitive verb 1 : to speak (as a word) incorrectly 2 : to express (oneself) imperfectly or incorrectly misspoke himself>intransitive ...
2 comments:
I think there's a line between misspeaking and lying. I believe that if you know when someone misspeaks is when they say the wrong price of something or the color of something. When you say that you went to Vietnam and then you say wait whoops I misspoke... it's unbelievable how much of a lie that is. He lied to the public. That's like in court when you said he didn't kill the certain person and you really meant to say did, thats lying not misspeaking.
worlds changing Mr. F.
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