Page 194 - Word Power Made Easy: The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary

unscrupulous, you are a dangerous person to get mixed up with.

An unconscionable liar

9. smooth!

Possessed of a lively imagination and a ready tongue, you can distort facts as smoothly
and as e ortlessly as you can say your name. But you do not always get away with your

lies.
Ironically enough, it is your very smoothness that makes you suspect: your answers are
too quick to be true. Even if we can’t immediately catch you in your lies, we have learned
from unhappy past experience not to suspend our critical faculties when you are talking.
We admire your nimble wit, but we listen with a skeptical ear.

A glib liar

10. outstanding!

Lies, after all, are bad—they are frequently injurious to other people, and may have a
particularly dangerous e ect on you as a liar. At best, if you are caught you su er some

embarrassment. At worst, if you succeed in your deception your character becomes warped
and your sense of values suffers. Almost all lies are harmful; some are no less than vicious.
If you are one type of liar, all your lies are vicious—calculatedly, predeterminedly, coldly,
and advisedly vicious. In short, your lies are so outstandingly hurtful that people gasp in
amazement and disgust at hearing them.

An egregious liar

In this chapter the ten basic words revolve rather closely around a central core. Each
one, however, has a distinct, a unique meaning, a special implication. Note the differences.

TYPE OF LIAR SPECIAL IMPLICATION

famous—or infamous—for lying; tendency to falsify is
1. notorious
well-known

2. consummate great skill

too far gone to be reformed—impervious to
3. incorrigible
rehabilitation

4. inveterate lying has become a deep-rooted habit

5. congenital lying had very early beginnings—as if from birth

6. chronic over and over