White lies, polite lies [ Reading & Writing / Communication ]
… authors of advice manuals thus had to walk a fine line between recommending honesty towards oneself and politeness towards others, while novelists grappled with their characters’ attempts to attain or reject a sociable … that proved to be elusive. Practices > Reading & Writing Practices > Communication Keywords Conversation Falsehood Lies Politeness A white lie, the OED explains, is ‘a harmless or trivial lie, esp. one told in order to avoid hurting another … heroines of the tale.’ 8 Samuel Johnson might have been more lenient on these occasions, and from the point of view of sociability, these female story-tellers may have been much more successful with their stories than they would have been …
Conversation | Falsehood | Lies | Politeness
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