Were you or your children forbidden to say the word "lie" as in fib?

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Interesting because I was brought up in the south as genx by gen jones. My gma was from the Greatest Generation, grandpa was Silent generation.

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jorwyn@reddit

My grandma from Kansas City said this, too. I don't know if my grandpa, who was from Alabama, did or not because he didn't call people out on their lies. He just nodded and went along..

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ObiWanKnieval@reddit

My southern grandma said that, too. Adults routinely use these old cliché expressions and metaphors on children well before they're developed enough to understand how language works. As if yelling some nonsensical bullshit in an angry voice will make it any easier to process.

"If you ever pull a stunt like that again!"

I'd be sitting there all clueless. Like, "I understand I'm in trouble here. I'm just not sure how stunts got involved." I'd be picturing motorcycles jumping through flaming hoops, and shit.

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Pumasense-2025@reddit

This was my Southern father's style as well. Problem was, he just refused to accept the truth.

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thejadsel@reddit

Saying “lie”, though, that wasn’t an issue.

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SnackFridge@reddit

my parents were the same! i couldn’t say “liar” i had to say “story-teller.” i also wasn’t allowed to say “yeah” or “yup,” only “yes.”

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Interesting-Phase947@reddit

"Fibbed" and "told a story" are euphemisms to soften what really happened. Saying "he lied" is directly accusatory. Directness is still seen as aggressive in the South today, but it was a lot worse in our parents' and grandparents' day.

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spintool1995@reddit

I think it has to do with a sense of personal honor and the obligation one felt to defend it, violently if necessary. Calling someone a liar is a direct attack on their honor and integrity and in the old days they would demand a retraction or a fight. Going back further it would probably require a duel to the death.

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deathbychips2@reddit

I've always heard tell a story as a way to say someone lied and not that the word was ban to say. Usually a type of person who says this too so I thought it was cultural.

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Lucky-Remote-5842@reddit

This was my household too. We also weren't supposed to say fart or poop. One time I yelled I needed toilet paper for my butt 😜.

My mom told me I shouldn't say that, because it wasn't ladylike. I should say I needed something for the bathroom.

I was like in what world would you have understood what that meant?

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Mental_Visual_25@reddit

Same for me too. I’m African American, born and raised in Georgia, and I remember getting in trouble for saying the word “lie”. We were always told to say “telling a story”, but would get popped if we say “so and so lied”

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New_Ambassador2442@reddit

Because outright accusing a child of lying a bit much. So we soften the blow by saying they are "fibbing"

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Not-Banksy@reddit

Hispanic from the southwest, religious family.

Lying was egregious. Only offense we got three swats with the belt for, only time the belt was used.

To call someone a liar or saying they were lying was a serious accusation and while we weren’t prohibited from saying it, parents would correct if we used it flippantly.

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Draconuus95@reddit

I can see the logic behind that at least. False or unsubstantiated causations being a major issue in today’s world and all.

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Not-Banksy@reddit

Yeah, some people see physical punishment or belt and instantly think we were abused or something.

Wild thing about Reddit is people come from all sorts of backgrounds and upbringings.

Reality was I got swatted probably less than three times my whole childhood. Learned quickly lying wasn’t acceptable and still holds to this day.

That said there may be better methods to teach why lying is very wrong, but my parents did the best they could and I really don’t hold ill feelings towards the punishment.

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NeptuneAndCherry@reddit

Now that I think about it, my parents pulled back on the words "lie" and "liar", opting for "fibbing" or fibber" or similar.

The text box is to be used to add clarification or context to your question only. Do not answer your own question in the text box. Keep all clarifying or contextual remarks short, under 250 characters.

Lie! 🤔

/S

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What if they are, in fact, liars? This policy seems like it was made to protect liars from accountability.

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No_Satisfaction_7431@reddit

Interesting, I've never heard that. I was always told lie and fib were interchangeable and that it had nothing to do with intent. You could tell a lie that you fully believed or a lie you knew was made up, it's still a lie. But I'm in my 20s so maybe its just a generational thing or a southern thing because I didn't grow up in the south.

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

If you believe it it’s not a lie or a fib. It’s just a mistaken fact.

Yep, same here. Grew up in So Cal.

Not forbidden, necessarily. But if I referred to someone as a liar or something like that, I was reprimanded for it, even if said person wasn't being truthful. In my parents case, they're super-religious Southern Baptists, maybe that played a role in it as well. It was perfectly fine to talk about "Satan's lies," though.

I mean, did they lie?

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Pure-Friend-8729@reddit

Yes. That's reason about calling someone a liar. It's like you were accusing someone of mortal sin. It wasn't done lightly. Also couldn't use the phrase "I swear." This has sparked an interesting conversation. It's not just our accent, there are so many southern cultural and language idiosyncrasies.

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draizetrain@reddit

I forgot about hate, we couldn’t say that either

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Electric-Sheepskin@reddit

And we weren't allowed to say "shut up," either. You could say "hush," or "be quiet," but not "shut up."

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thickjamaicanuncle@reddit

I think forbidding "shut up" was everywhere though, especially in schools. Even all the way up to high school I'd say "fuck" in class but never "shut up" haha

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cstar4004@reddit

I was also not allowed to say “crap” or “shut up”

“Lie” was perfectly normal to say, though. If children have no word for “lie” then they are being set up to be excellent victims of telemarketing scams.

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Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit (OP)

Nobody was being shielded from the concept of lying in this instance. Like the other person mentioned, you'd hear your parents using the word; it just wasn't for kids to say.

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cstar4004@reddit

That is such a foreign concept to me, and I do not understand it or its purpose at all.

Like.. how is the child supposed to say, “no, they are lying” if their bully says, “Im not being a bully,” and they cant use the word lie?

“He is untruthing!”

What if the child, god-forbid, gets molested by a catholic priest, and cannot tell their parents that the priest is lying? What purpose is there to remove random words from a child’s vocabulary?

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In some cultures, it is seen as polite and correct to directly ask for whatever (information, an object, permission, whatever), and the assumption is that if it is not possible/available, the person will just say no and that will be an acceptable response by the asker from an etiquette perspective (even if they may be disappointed). This is ask culture.

In other cultures, it is seen as extremely impolite to refuse almost anything, which makes it incumbent on people who want to be polite to be sure they only ask for things which they are pretty certain are going to be willingly agreed to. To ask for something in the first place is seen as pressure to provide it or an entitlement to that thing, and refusing things is seen as carrying a risk of offense. People do a lot more hinting and talking around issues to allow for indirect encouragement or discouragement without it ever coming to a direct confrontation. This is guess culture.

This leads to situations like a person from an ask culture requesting something from a guess culture person, and the guess culture person being annoyed or resentful of the request because they experience it as virtually a demand, and now the either have to provide it or be rude (from their perspective).

Meanwhile the person from the ask culture assumes that "it doesn't hurt to ask" and that the other person can always say no, and has no idea their request is being experienced as an imposition.

Conversely, someone from a guess culture may want something from an ask culture person, but approach it obliquely, waiting for a signal that the other person is open to the request or an offer anticipating the request, and finding none (because the AC person isn't picking up those signals and assumes the other person would ask if they were interested. The GC person may experience this as an intentional avoidance of the request.

Lots of room for miscommunication and frustration.

Things vary even within individual families, but largely speaking, someone areas are more strongly one or the other. Highly hierarchical cultures tend to be more guessy. If there are big power differentials between individuals or a highly asymmetric system of respect/treatment between different groups within a culture, things tend to be more guessy.

The US south is very guessy.

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Im_Not_Nick_Fisher@reddit

Exactly! When ask meets another ask, or guess meets another guess there are no issues. The issue is when they mix, ask seems rude to the guess person. And the ask person is just left confused by the guess person. It’s a struggle for sure. My wife is from Alabama and although she’s very direct, her family is very much the guess While I’m the ask and have never really felt like I’m part of the family.

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whimsical_spider@reddit

Thanks! When you break it down line that I know exactly what you’re talking about. I am from up north but my family moved to the south (United States north and south, to be clear) and I tend to be more direct rather than beating around the bush, it often leads to people thinking I’m brash or rude. I think what you’re describing is very similar to that experience.

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anonymouse278@reddit

I've lived in the south for my whole adult life, but I grew up in the north and I feel like I'm in the exact point on the scale to inadvertently offend both types of people in their turn because I am neither direct enough to make askers happy, nor sufficiently versed in the subtleties of the guess culture I live in to always pick up on it.

Nah. Mom's hateword was fart.

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Prairie_Crab@reddit

Yeahhhh… I’d kind of forgotten that. My parents were from Missouri. The word “lie” was serious, as was “liar.” It raised the temperature of any argument to boiling over.

draizetrain@reddit

I think black people the country over generally have strong linguistic ties to the south, since most of us lived here til not too long ago

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Accurate_Weather_211@reddit

I was going to say this. We weren’t forbidden from saying it but if you said it to somebody in an accusatory way, it was game on. My Mom didn’t say it so we parroted what she said: “She tells tall-tales.” “Are you telling me a story?” “He may have fibbed a little.” “They are pulling your leg.” “He is blowing smoke.” “They are making stuff up.”

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Easy_Key5944@reddit

First thing I thought. We weren't "forbidden" but it was fighting words, and everyone involved got punished for fighting. So better to use a euphemism and just make up your own mind about people's trustworthiness

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rohan_rat@reddit

Nope, and I have known families that might discourage the casual use of that word, they didn't forbid or disallow it. They asked about imagination and accusations and had conversations. Lies are told with intent, typically.

I have an answer!

To bear false witness is a violation of the 9th commandment. To gossip, slander someone, cast doubt on their good character, or make rash judgements against people is a mortal sin (I don't know if protests use that terminology).

According to my Appalachian mom, to call someone a liar is an accusation against their character and must be done so ONLY in very serious contexts.

A liar is someone who maliciously says untrue things.

white American, and no. I could say "lie," but I wasn't allowed to say "hate." even in the context of, "ew, I hate stuffed cabbage!" my mum would scold me.

note: I now love stuffed cabbage.

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mxunsung@reddit

I’m African American and I was raised the same way

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FivebyFive@reddit

Like... As a kid was I discouraged from calling people liars?

I think probably so. I seem to recall discussions about assuming people mean well and trying to understand them before assuming they lied.

But it wasn't a flat ban on the word or anything.

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Simpawknits@reddit

My grandmother would say "Storying" instead. I always thought that was funny.

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JenniferJuniper6@reddit

No.

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deathbychips2@reddit

No. These seems something very specific to your family. I have not heard of this and have known too many Jehovah witnesses and evangelicals.

I'm Black American. We absolutely could not say the word lie. It was almost like you were full out cussing. Fib was acceptable. As was "telling a story".

When it feels weird, I have to remind myself that my parents grew up during the Civil Rights movement and their parents lived theough the most difficult parts of Jim Crow. So using that word may have meant death to them, so yeah. It made sense that they would avoid having their children say the word, too.

In my 46 years in this country on both coast I have never once heard of this before.

Black person raised in the south.

I was not allowed to say “lie”. I had to say “told a story” or “fib”.

In pretty sure that’s a your family thing not a Black or American thing

Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit (OP)

saying something was a lie was definitely considered a serious offense if a kid used it

That basically sounds like what I'm talking about. "You're telling a lie/That's a lie" was not okay. "You're telling a story/that isn't true" was alright.

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Blutrumpeter@reddit

seifd@reddit

No, not at all.

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Tardisgoesfast@reddit

No.

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No-Banana247@reddit

So when I was little, meemaw (grandma who was Silent generation born in 1923) didn't like when I was figured out that they would lie to me sometimes. Fibs we're little lies that were to spare feelings or for safety.

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papercranium@reddit

No, but I wasn't allowed to say the word "hate."

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DineenMattingly@reddit

No. That's weird.

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Lcdmt3@reddit

Uh oh. All of us for first communion said we lied as our sin! 7 year olds.

Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit (OP)

Not lying was a different rule than not saying the word lie. Consensus in here seems to be that it's forbidden because of some scriptures in the Bible about liars or because it's too direct.

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Draconuus95@reddit

Ya. Despite growing up in the south I never had this experience others are talking about.

shwh1963@reddit

Nope.

I'm an American, but I'm not sure if it's an African American thing

No, it's a thing.

Ca1rill@reddit

Not if someone is lying.

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alwaysboopthesnoot@reddit

No, that was never a thing for us growing up. Lie was ok. The one word we couldn’t use and it wasn’t a swear word, was “hate”.

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JadedDreams23@reddit

No. Why? (I did recently divorce a man who tried to make me stop calling him a liar. I told him the way to make me stop was to stop lying lol)

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No_Daikon4466@reddit

No, I'm not sure what this is about. Fib and lie have somewhat different meanings, but the words themselves weren't taboo to use.

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TheBimpo@reddit

No. Telling the truth was of paramount importance in our household. Understanding the definition of a lie is crucial for so many reasons.

I’m genuinely confused

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CosmoBiologist@reddit

Yes in addition to not saying God's name in vain and any derivatives (gosh, omg). Also no poop, pee, piss , boo boo - my Mom was a science teacher and preferred us saying "urinate and defecate".

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Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit (OP)

You'd say "they're telling a story/fibbing" etc.

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burlingk@reddit

I would have gotten yelled at for THAT, because it downplays it.

'Fib' implies it is not as bad as a 'real' lie. And 'telling stories,' implies that it isn't really a lie, just playing pretend.

Yeah, I heard people talk like that all the time, but I wasn't allowed to. \^\^;

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MonkeyVine7@reddit

No. I grew up in a religious (Christian) household so all swear words and stand-ins for swears words were banned. But 'lie' was not one of fhem.

I think it is a Deep South thing. We were not allowed to accuse people of lying. “Lie” was considered too harsh. We could say fib, but had to be careful!

No, I never encountered this. Kind of in the same vein though; my step mom and her extended family made a big stink about saying “I swear.” They acted as if swearing was like making a contract with god, as opposed to just telling a casual lie.

My mother would accuse us of telling a fib. I think it sounded less harsh to her that accusing us of lying. But the word itself was not a bad word.

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Mental_Freedom_1648@reddit (OP)

Not particularly.

Yes I have heard of this --I grew up in the southern US around a lot of black families.

Some of them were not allowed to say someone was a liar they had to say they were "telling a story"

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PreciousLoveAndTruth@reddit

No…

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DBL_NDRSCR@reddit

nope, never heard of that being a thing

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jessek@reddit

Never heard of that one.

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Pirate_Lantern@reddit

....No....

That's weird

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Atlas7993@reddit

I vaguely recall not being able to say the word lie when I was at my grandparents' house. They said fib there, but that was the only place it was taboo to my memory.

white guy from rural Iowa.

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ElefanteAmor@reddit

I was told to call it a fib as a kid. I’m not sure why. I’ve never asked. Hmmmm

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Melora_T_Rex714@reddit

Nope. Unh-uh.

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plumberbss@reddit

No

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tomatocrazzie@reddit

I am white but grew up in a diverse area and had a lot of black friends all through kindergarten through college. I am also older (born in the 60's). I never observed and hesitantly in them saying lie/lier or lying. This was in the Northeast US, so maybe it was a regional thing in other parts of the country.

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