"Oops, I lied..."

[Sstavix]

I have a coworker who, like many of us, occasionally makes mistakes. The way she responds to those, however, has me a bit surprised.

When she's talking with a customer, sometimes she'll make a mistake, or miss some data that has been corrected, or things like that. When she finds the error, though, she usually responds with "oops, I lied, it's actually...."

The first time I heard this it surprised me. I thought "no, you didn't lie, you just made a mistake." I've never called her out on the semantics of this (maybe it's the English major in me) but it makes me wonder why she responds in this fashion. As if she is saying "I am too proud to admit that I was wrong, so I deliberately chose to mislead you instead."

That's what I think it is. Pride. Too proud to admit to a fault, but she chooses to portray herself as a deceiver in response. Personally, I don't think that's a way I would want to be perceived. She may not even be aware that she's doing it, since it's become second nature to her.

But it does make me think about what we've been taught as Christians - to strive to be honest and forthright to all of our fellow men. To not be too proud or "stiffnecked" to accept the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.

This has just been some idle thoughts that I've had recently and wanted to share with others.

[LAVA89]

This has been a trend, actually, I've noticed with alot of people my age (early to mid 20's). So I'm not sure if they say it intentionally, or its just a cultural habit people have picked up.

[ccgr]

I've heard it but its been a while. I don't see it as dishonesty only a mistake. I try to keep my pride in check and most of the time its easy to admit fault...

[Bruce_Campbell]

I think that's a regional thing, because I hear that all the time. I also live in Texas, where more often than not people are Christians. Heck, I say that fairly often myself. (Typically, it's accompanied by some form of light apology.) Is this person southern? XD

I don't think pride has anything to do with it, it's just one of those weird idioms that has worked its way into our language. I mean, when people say that it's usually in a kind but sorta facetious tone. Of course when you say it the other person knows you weren't out to intentionally deceive him or her. It's like if you dropped something and said, "I've got butterfingers!" You don't actually have butter on your fingers, it's just an expression.

Now, one thing that really chaps my hind parts is when people say something like "Bless your heart!" and they really mean it as some kind of passive aggressive insult. That's another thing you hear a lot down here.

[ArchAngel]

I agree ccgr and Bruce. The "oops" makes it pretty clear it's a mistake. The "I lied" after that only serves as an emphasis that this isn't in fact a lie through irony.

[ChickenSoup]

I've never actually seen someone say it in genuine pride

[epsons]

I think it might be a mistake to judge someone's overall character based on a small idiosyncrasy.

[brandon1984]

Linguistic meaning evolves over time. I remember when I first heard the word "love" being used in different contexts. "I love playing basketball!" "I love Star Wars!" I was resistant thinking, c'mon guys let's preserve the meaning of this word, there's too many other words that could replace it in these contexts.

Maybe you're friend's meaning of "lie" has nothing to do with ulterior motivated false propositions. It's just another word for exactly what you want her to mean -- mistake -- as other's have mentioned ahead of me.

[Sstavix]

Interesting. I had no idea it was such a commonplace expression! I've only ever heard her say it (she's initially from Montana, so I'm not sure if that part of the country uses the term like that frequently).

It does make me wonder what that might say about our society, though....

[Nashulee]

I won't lie , I think it is a common place thing and folks don't watch what they say, however, to tell you the truth , I think that we should consider what words we say and what they mean. In all honesty , I think that we could use a good dose of considering what the words actually mean when we say them and not just what we want them to mean when we do.