Loving to see liars squirm when nailed

People lie all the time. The greatest teacher of all said, though, that people speak from the storehouse of treasures found in the heart. I take "heart" to mean the psyche, so I study the area of psychology and language, and presto, one can tell when those lies are being created. It's really a little fun to know that the liar has to squirm for a little while, while you or someone you have related the secret to grills the liar for the truth.

Here's an example. The word "well" has 4 uses, 3 of which are negative in nature. One of the uses means that someone is in outright disagreement with what was said. Another use means that a person is searching for common ground with the other person in the conversation in order to continue the conversation because the first person doesn't exactly agree with the second person's statement.

Imagine an attorney asking someone a question in a deposition or a voir dire. The person answering begins with "Well..." A problem has arisen, but the attorney doesn't recognize it. And which of the 4 uses of well did the person answering the attorney have in mind? Is (s)he disagreeing with the attorney, sorting for common ground, trying to fix just the part that is causing some disagreement, or stalling for time to formulate an answer?

That's why language experts need to be in the loop in all sorts of situations. What about the detective interviewing a suspect for a crime? Is the suspect agreeing or disagreeing with the detective? Is the detective trying to lead the suspect to say something that sounds like the truth so that (s)he can proceed with an arrest? What about non-legal arenas such as arbitration or non-court hearings such as the kind that take place in educational systems?

Since virtually all people use language to get what they want or hide the truth or hedge in giving statements or speak partial truths in all kinds of situations, formal and informal alike, then people think they know how to judge the language use of others. They really need someone familiar with the science of langage in the formal situations, and many times in the informal circumstances too. Someday maybe.