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Signs of Deception 115

Use of verbs and adverbs

• Verb n. a word that applies to an action (doing).
• First person singular ‘I’ ‘me’ or ‘my’.
• Tense n. (Gram.) form taken by a verb to indicate the time (also continuance or

completeness) of the action etc. (present, future, past, conditional, imperfect, perfect).
• Active or passive ‘I kicked Bill’ or ‘Bill was kicked’.

A person may unconsciously use different verbs in a way that exposes his inner thinking. For
example, a story may contain the verbs ‘said’, ‘tell’, ‘conversing’, ‘conversed’ and ‘discussed’ which
appear synonymous but may reveal important differences. Analysis might reveal that the
subject used the verb ‘told’ and the past tense when he was describing a friendly conversation
and consistently used ‘conversing’ in the present tense when he was on the receiving end of a
tirade. Such minor differences may be important and they should be consciously examined.

Liars consistently use less past tense verbs than honest people

LINGUISTIC CODES affidavit addressed this purchase as follows:
‘During the week commencing Monday
A defendant’s affidavit4 was described by the 8th April (i.e. not a specific date and time), I
complainant’s lawyer as ‘being convincing attended upon a retail store in Central Essex
beyond peradventure’. The defendant and acquired the said items.’
stated that on various specific times and
dates he ‘went’, ‘saw’, ‘spoke to’, ‘bought’, This sentence was a glaring breach of the
‘purchased’ and each one was supported by defendant’s linguistic code and is therefore
detail. The critical point was precisely when highly suspect.
and where he bought a specific item. The

Memory speaks in the past tense

Great care also has to be taken over verbs that do not have any associated action. For ex-
ample, ‘I started to mend the computer’ does not mean he mended it, or even that he made a
reasonable effort to do so. ‘Tried’, ‘thought about’, ‘considered’ etc. (which can be referred to as
‘unverbs’, or ‘political verbs’, because the only action associated with them is cerebral) should
be carefully examined for their real meaning.

CEREBRAL VERBS Question: ‘Did you actually mend it?’
Reply: ‘No, Tom came into the office and
You should always ask for an explanation of interrupted me.’
unfinished verbs. For example, ‘I started to
mend the computer.’

First person singular, past tense (FPSPT) commits a writer to an explanation. Use of other
than the FPSPT or a mixture of tenses within a topic dealing with past events are all signs of
deception.

4 Most affidavits cannot be considered to be freestyle stories