Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

The language of liars. 'Legendary,' 'famous,' or 'notorious'? Fish shapes.


Listen Later

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.

đź”— Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.

🔗 Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.

🔗 Subscribe to the newsletter.

🔗 Take our advertising survey. 

đź”— Get the edited transcript.

🔗 Get Grammar Girl books. 

đź”— Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.

| HOST: Mignon Fogarty

| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475).

| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.

  • Audio Engineer: Nathan Semes
  • Director of Podcast: Brannan Goetschius
  • Advertising Operations Specialist: Morgan Christianson
  • Marketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina Tomlin
  • Digital Operations Specialist: Holly Hutchings

| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.

| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.

 


 

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.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better WritingBy QuickAndDirtyTips.com

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

2,805 ratings


More shows like Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

View all
A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. Produced by Stefanie Levine.

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

2,248 Listeners

TED Talks Daily (SD video) by TED

TED Talks Daily (SD video)

1,771 Listeners

TED Talks Daily by TED

TED Talks Daily

11,135 Listeners

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day by Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

1,199 Listeners

Science Quickly by Scientific American

Science Quickly

1,371 Listeners

Nutrition Diva by QuickAndDirtyTips.com, Monica Reinagel

Nutrition Diva

1,707 Listeners

Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Freakonomics Radio

32,251 Listeners

TED Tech by TED Tech

TED Tech

402 Listeners

TED Radio Hour by NPR

TED Radio Hour

22,057 Listeners

Savvy Psychologist by QuickAndDirtyTips.com

Savvy Psychologist

1,373 Listeners

Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

Hidden Brain

43,396 Listeners

Something You Should Know by Mike Carruthers | OmniCast Media

Something You Should Know

4,193 Listeners

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio by Milk Street Radio

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio

2,955 Listeners

Life Kit by NPR

Life Kit

4,293 Listeners

The Shit No One Tells You About Writing by Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra

The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

753 Listeners