Is a Lie a Lie?

You were in the freakin parking lot of the grocery store. You were AT the store, just not in it.

This argument is over the words IN the grocery store or AT the grocery store???

You WERE grocery shopping, you were just at the very beginning part of it. Parking, getting a cart, heading down the aisle.

I mean... if we want to get really technical... if someone stops while IN a grocery store, to think about... I don't know... catepillers. Are they still shopping?

What are you doing? ACTUALLY.. the "100% correct" answer would be a 5yo answer:

"I'm talking on the phone, I'm finding a spot, found a spot, fixing my parking job, putting it in park, undoing my seatbelt, getting my list, stepping out of the car, thinking about peeing before shopping, closing my door, locking the door..."

There's a difference between the *absolute truth* and the general truth.

This is a semantics question. Not a lie question. In or At. But in either case, you WERE grocery shopping.

Sheesh.

I'll say I'm shopping too if I just pulled in the parking lot and wouldn't thing a thing about it. I've done it tons. If I'm driving, I'd say I'm heading to the store. I don't think that's a lie since you're there. If you were in bed taking a nap and said you were grocery shopping, that would be a different story.

3 kinds of lies:
1) to protect oneself
2) to protect another
3) to deceive another. Of which the reasons can be many.

You were pulling in to go grocery shopping, so not a lie b/c that was your current agenda. It would have been a lie if you were still in the shoe store, or not on your way to the grocery store :)

Your friend is right, there is a difference. You don't tell your friend you are worried about her scary fast weight gain/loss and that she looks like a weepy ogre, you tell her you are worried about her health and if everything is alright b/c you noticed she's been not herself lately.

As for the money scenarios, "I don't have it" is acceptable. It means, "I don't have it to give away." which is good for people who like to borrow money. Of course, if you are borrowing money claiming you don't have money for necessities, than going to buy a new tv with it, then that is a blatant lie for deceiving/using people.

If it is untrue to the best knowledge of the person speaking it, it is a lie.

With the parking lot, you were at the store you just hadn't gone in. Even if you didn't feel guilty about running late wouldn't you have still said I am at the grocery store? It was your guilt that made you question your honesty. Regardless of the time frame if I am within spitting distance of my goal I will say I am at my goal. Much easier than saying I am pulling into whatever or I am looking for a parking space at whatever, I just say I am at whatever, ya know? Okay I would have said at and not in but still....

So far as someone wanting to borrow money that is a lie. Just because you lied to keep from telling someone you didn't want to lend them money doesn't change it from being a lie. If you want to lie because you don't have the balls to tell the truth then fine but don't make up a new name for the lie. Just accept you are lying and move on.

Technically if you would have told your husband "at" the grocery store instead of "in" the grocery store.... That would not have been a lie or "untruth" lol - and if someone asks me to borrow money and I say I don't have it - that may mean I don't have it to be borrowed, not necessarily I don't have it to buy something I may need or want.

I don't know! lol - I "try" to tell the truth all the time but I can see myself saying these "untruths" you've mentioned. Technically you weren't "LYING" to your husband... you were pulling in.... that's a hard one.

I looove Riley's answer!

While sitting on the couch watching TV, saying "I'm in the grocery store" is a lie. But you were physically on the legal property of the grocery store, so you didn't lie at all. So you misspoke the word "in" instead of "at", so what? Are we all 100% accurate all the time? I ate almost 1/2 a sandwich, but I said "I ate 1/2 a sandwich". Technically it was more like 3/8 of a sandwich, but really, did I lie by saying 1/2 instead of 3/8? I don't even think what you said was an "untruth", whatever THAT is...

And if you tell your friend you have no money to lend, even when you do, regardless of your intent, that IS a lie. The truth would be "I have the money, I need it to buy shoes."

Yes - it was a lie.

Both are meant to deceive.

No a lie is a lie and so is an untruth! To say you don't have any money when someone asks you is a truth, you don't have any money for THEM to borrow. Usually when we tell someone we don't have money for them to borrow its because either we're in a huge financial pinch, OR we don't trust them to pay it back or spend it on what they claim they need it for.

Yes, you lied to your husband, you were shoe shopping! If you don't want to admit that, be veigue and just say I'm shopping. But don't say you're grocery shopping if you're not because you can see how easy it is to catch that lie. It will build a foundation for mistrust between the two of you, even over little things. If you lie about little things, will you lie about big things that really matter?

My husband loves to exaggerate and lie about things that he thinks are small and don't matter. It certainly makes we wonder, I usually ask him specific straight forwardly about the truth of his answer so I can know if he's "exaggerating/misleading" me. (saying I'm almost home, when he's just leaving work...a 30 min drive)(telling people he won't know about a new job until January, because he doesn't want people trying to convince him to stay in the area all autumn). He also knows that it bothers me that I don't really know if he's telling the truth about big things. I've certainly lost respect for his integrity. You can always say, I don't want to tell you or I'm not ready to announce my decision about that.

Anyway. I just believe in 100% honesty.

I guess the difference being discussed is intent and or malice but I've gotta say--a lie is a lie, no matter the intent and lack of or existence of malice.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..."
-Shakespeare

We all use innocent lies meant to not cause needless worry, to not upset or involve or put people (or selves) in bothersome predicaments. We also use them when asked inappropriate or personal questions. Who cares? As long as they don't hurt anybody, they help us live.

Wouldn't an "untruth" be akin to a "white lie"? Not really an original concept, just a renaming. The blogger used 'untruth' in his definition of a lie, therefore one must conclude that a lie is a lie and an untruth is a lie (but there are varying degrees).

I think Riley hit the nail on the head. I know, like B, that if my husband asked me what I was doing and I went into great detail to explain that I was trying to locate a convenient parking spot at the grocery store before going in to do my shopping, because I had spent longer shoe shopping than I intended... that he would be sorry he even asked the question and would likely interrupt me to say "never mind, what I REALLY was calling to ask you was___". He didn't really care to know EXACTLY what I was doing AT THAT SINGLE MOMENT. He wanted to know "generally" what you were in the process of accomplishing. And that was getting in the grocery store to get the shopping done. It's semantics.
Maybe you wished you had gotten done shoe shopping a little faster and were already done at the grocery store, but I ALWAYS wish I was already done at the grocery store. Who likes being in one of those?
IF you were pulling into yet another shoe store (instead of the grocery store) and said "in the grocery store" then THAT would be a bald faced lie. No two ways about it. But "in the parking lot of the grocery store" vs. "in the grocery store"? It's just wasted words when you SHOULD have not been talking on the phone while driving, right? Parking lots are a terrible place to be on the telephone, unless you are already parked. If it were me, that is what I would have been trying to do: conserve words so I could get off the phone and get into the store to get the shopping done, lol.

The blog hurt my eyes, sorry, so I just kind of glossed over that. I can see that if my husband called and asked me what I was doing, and I was pulling into the grocery store parking lot, that I probably would have said I'm grocery shopping. The difference is that my husband wouldn't have split hairs with the timing of what I said. (And he'd probably be happy I was shoe shopping - he just mentioned the other night how few pairs of shoes I own, especially compared to him! He just gave away to Goodwill 7 pairs...)

I don't understand why what you said is deceiving. If you had said that you were on your way home, or that you had finished grocery shopping, or something like that, then that is dishonest.

It sounds like there is an issue between you two and he is trying punish you.

Dawn

I know of what you speak ;-) I like to be an optomist and refer to these as "half truths". LOL

Pathetically I can not lie. I either find it too exhausting (trying to remember who I told what) or just unconsciousable (sp?) and can not do it.

Well, I think a lie is a lie. Your blog says an untruth is usually a vague, inaccuracy of the truth. That is also being sneaky. Being sneaky means you have something to hide. If you have something to hide, you are usually ashamed about it. So, my thought is, if it is not the total truth, it has to be a lie. An "inaccuracy" is just a feel good word, so you don't have to say you lied, when you really did. BTW, i guess i lie to my husband occasionally too, cause I don't think he needs to know where i am 24/7, cause I like to shop too!!!!!

If you said "*at* the grocery store" instead of "*in* the grocery store", I don't think that would have been a lie, even if it was intended to deceive. He did ask you what you were doing, not what you had been doing all day, so the former was the truth, while the latter was a lie.

being vague and adding inaccuracy as well as omitting important information , in my opinion, are also meant to deceive... so, yes an untruth is a lie.. You don't need a blog to know the difference.. or some in-depth conversation... It is what it is... plain and simple.. anyone trying to illustrate the differences are really only kidding themselves.. I would also add trying to detour others from knowing the actual truth of the matter is a huge headgame....

To me, if it's not the truth, then it's a lie. I don't see any difference. I will say I believe there are different levels of lies, i.e., white lie which is kind of like your example, but it's still a lie.

Well...you were grocery shopping but you just failed to mention that you just started. LOL

I think a lie is a lie. You know in your heart you did not say, just pulled into the grocery store because you assumed he would wonder where you were before hand and you did not want to admit where that was. And whether we are sparing someone's feelings or not, telling someone we don't have money when we do indeed have at least some money, is a lie. Whether someone wants to make a new name for it is on that persons conscious. :)

Would you want your kid to do the same thing? No? Definitely a lie, either way.

The real question is WHY you didn't tell him you were shoe shopping! I always think money lies are bad for a marriage. So, while I think it's a lie...there are different degrees of lies. If you were just sheepish about shoe shopping, obviously not a big deal. If you were trying to hide spending money...big no no. If you had reached an agreement that you wouldn't spend money on things like shoes and you lied about it, even bigger no no.

P.S.
Gotcha!! Knowing all that, I think the whole situation is pretty funny, actually!!

A lie is a lie when it is to protect you from getting in trouble. We don't tolerate this with our children. ;)

A lie to preserve a life is different. For example, during Nazi Germany, lying about hiding Jews in your house is preserving their lives. That is acceptable. Counting the cost of the lie/truth is prudent when a real life is at stake.

Lying to cover up the fact that you were shoe shopping is not good. Even your post betrays that your heart in this was to protect yourself and not tell the whole truth. The thing is, you could have easily said that you just pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store. I don't see how that would have caused any red flags.

An untruth is a lie. Semantics don't change the heart of the matter.

With the lending money scenario, the unspoken part of 'I don't have it' is the 'for you' part.
Which is perfectly true.
Then you get into the whole 'lie of omission' thing - allowing someone to believe something in a certain way by not reveling all the facts.
There's the oath to 'tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' but then lawyers restrict questions/answers in such a way as to completely negate the oath.
I'm so truthful to my husband he's pretty much stopped asking me what I'm doing.
Last time he asked me what advice I was giving on this site I told him more than he wanted to know about treating vaginal yeast infections with home remedies.
If he's truly interested, I'm more than happy to discuss these things with him!