We seem to have arrived at a situation in this country where it is safer for the prime minister to lie to the House of Commons than it is for a fellow parliamentarian to point out that the prime minister has been lying. To accuse a fellow MP of telling a lie is to use “unparliamentary language”, which is not allowed, and is apparently a much worse sin than not telling the truth.
When we were children, the situation was not totally dissimilar. Most adults were reluctant to accuse us directly of lying, since lie was a very strong word.
Of course children were not accused of being “economical with the truth”, as increasingly frequently happens to politicians. Instead, as children we might be reprimanded for telling “untruths”.
Obviously, if something is an untruth, then it is not true, and a lie is a statement which is not true. So an untruth is in fact a lie; but as we all know, some words acquire an emotional loading which their synonyms or near-synonyms lack. Those synonyms may then come to be used as euphemisms.
Falsehood is perhaps also a weaker way of saying something is a lie. Whopper has a humorous aspect which helps to diminish the potential strength of an accusation, so using this alternative achieves a euphemistic effect.
Another near synonym for a lie which was frequently used around us children was fib. The OED says that this word is used with reference to “a venial or trivial falsehood; often used as a jocular euphemism for ‘a lie’.” It is thus not a total synonym for lie because it typically means “a small or unimportant lie”, but the act of lying is clearly what is being referred to.
As with many other English words, the origins of fib are not entirely certain, but etymologists have come up with a reasonable suggestion.
They propose that the ultimate origin of fib lies in the word fable, which is a fictitious story – one that is not founded on fact – as evidenced by Aesop’s Fables, such as the Fox and the Grapes, where a hungry fox tries to reach some grapes high off the ground but, finding he can’t jump high enough, walks off saying “they aren’t ripe yet – I don’t want sour grapes”, an expression still used of people disparaging something they can’t attain. And, by the way, the existence of Aesop himself may not be entirely “founded on fact’’ either.
Fable was originally a French word, descended from Latin fabula “narrative, story, fable”, which was ultimately derived from Latin fari “to tell”.
Playful reduplicated forms of fable, like fible-fable and fybble-fabble, are attested from as early as the 16th century. They were formed on the same model as tittle-tattle (idle chatter, trivial gossip) involving (according to the OED) “details that are unsubstantiated by evidence”. Other colloquial expressions using the same sound pattern include crinkle-crankle, fiddle-faddle, shilly-shally, dilly-dally, jibber-jabber, wishy-washy, ticky-tacky, pitter-patter, and chitter-chatter.
So I reckon that it is reasonably safe for me to state – without fear of being
accused of being economical with the truth – that fib is probably a shortened
form of fibble-fabble, an expression originally derived from fable.
VENIAL
Venial is an adjective which is applied to nouns signifying wrongdoings which are trivial or pardonable. It comes from Old French venial, which was derived from Latin venia “favour, forgiveness, permission”. The word is etymologically related to the Old English form wynn “delight, pleasure” which has given us modern English winsome.
