I Cannot Tell a Lie (but I Can Mislead)! And Sometimes People Do It With Percentages.
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
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The Difference Between Lying and Misleading
Unlike lying, if your target doesn't buy your misleading statement, then you haven't misled anyone. In contrast, squiggly 's only misleading ard vark if he says something that's not itself false. This triggere is what those studying pragmatics call a scaler implicature. A speaker's use of the smaller term one or a part usually negates the larger term.
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