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Signs of Deception 119

Normally, before the collective pronouns ‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘they’ are used, the other people
concerned should be introduced by name; failure to do so (i.e. the use of ‘we’ without explain-
ing who is referred to) suggests that the relationship between the subject and the other party
is not harmonious.

Use of adjectives

• Adjectives n. (Gram.) word or phrase naming an attribute, added to a noun to describe a
thing more fully.

Adjectives, and adjectival clauses, add detail to a topic and when consistently used are more
likely to be truthful than not.

Use of prepositions

• Preposition n. word governing and normally proceeding a noun or pronoun, expressing its
relationship to another word (for example, ‘at’, ‘in’, ‘off’, ‘to’, ‘with’ etc.).

The liar may unconsciously use wrong or inconsistent prepositions. In the OJ Simpson case he
referred to taking his telephone ‘off’ his car rather than ‘from’ it. Again this suggests that the expla-
nation is unreliable and that his brain was struggling to find a suitable answer.

Use of definite and indefinite articles

The use of ‘the’6 and ‘a’7 or ‘an’ can also be revealing. In our analysis of the dingo case (Chap-
ter 5), the subject speaks of seeing ‘a’ dingo and later refers to ‘the’ dingo. This progression is
natural: but immediately referring to an individual member of a general class as ‘the’ indicates
deception or omission.

Conjunctions

These words, such as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘because’ etc. connect words and phrases and usually indicate
a continuity of thought or of memory retrieval. An absence of conjunctions is indicative of
deception.

Interjections

A person may interject with an exclamation such as ‘oh’ or ‘shit’ which does not grammati-
cally fit into a phrase or sentence. Interjections are normally true.

Summary of clues in the syntax

Clues in the syntax of a false explanation are illustrated in Mind Map 6 and summarized in
Table 4.7.

6 Definite article
7 Indefinite article