Trial lawyer says there’s one word that always gives away when someone is lying

Think the people you are surrounded by truthful people? Well, there might be one word you can sniff out which shows whether or not you’re surrounded by people who aren’t being truthful.

Now, people lie for various reasons in everyday life, whether it’s a white lie to get out of trouble or a big lie to scam someone out of something.

But according to a trial lawyer, there is one word that’ll let you know that a liar is in your midst.

While appearing on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Jefferson Fisher shared the one ‘dead giveaway’ to deceit and how to get them to fess up.

A trial judge reveals all about liars (Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty)

He shared that when people are trying to hide something, they’ll use absolutes and extreme wording.

Giving host Steven Bartlett a scenario, he asked him to pose the question: “Were you texting while you were driving that day?”

To which Jefferson responded: “No, I never text. Never text when I drive.”

“Notice I said a big word. I said ‘never’. Never is an extreme. Extremes are a dead giveaway that they’re usually not telling the truth,” he explained. “Everybody texts when they drive at some point in time, even in your car. Never and always. It’s always or never true.

"So that’s a big one.”

It's all in what they say (SimpleImages / Getty)

He also claimed that someone who is lying will be responding to those questions ‘really quickly’ without thinking about what was asked to them.

That’s because they don’t contemplate or try to remember anything.

So, if you want to catch a liar, all you need to do is one thing: Slowly repeat the question you’re asking as the person lying are likely to slip up on their original answer.

“They’ll say, ‘well, I mean sometimes I do’, because now they hinge on that word ‘never’,” Jefferson said.

But not only can it have an impact on your relationship with someone, but it can also negatively affect a person's mental health, too.

A 2023 study on lying was taken at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, which had participants jot down their lying for the day, with results finding that 22 per cent of those polled told a self-centred lie, while 8 per cent told a lie to protect someone else and then 69 per cent reported that they did not lie on the day in question.

However, those who recalled lying were 'reported to have experienced lower self-esteem after the situation compared with participants who were asked to recall a situation in which they did not lie'.

You know what they say: A web of lies can only be spun by someone smart enough to remember them all.

That ain’t me.

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