View source for Economical with the truth

{{Short description|Euphemism for dishonesty}}
{{Italic title}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2015}}

To be '''''economical with the truth''''' literally means to avoid revealing too much of the truth. While the idea may have an approbatory sense of [[prudence]] or diplomacy, the phrase is often either used [[euphemism|euphemistically]] to denote dissimulation ([[misleading]] by withholding pertinent information) or else used [[irony|ironically]] to mean outright [[Lie|lying]]. The term '''''parsimonious with the truth''''' is also sometimes used in the same way.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hencke |first1=David |title=Tobacco giant in illicit sales query |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/20/smoking.davidhencke |access-date=24 April 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=20 June 2002 |language=en}}</ref>

==Origins==
The ''Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations''<ref name="odq14n12">[https://books.google.com/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC&pg=PA14 ''Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations'' 2007, p. 14] no. 12</ref> and [[Kenneth Rose]]<ref>{{cite news|
first=Francis |last=Beckett |date=14 April 2003|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200304140040 |url-access=subscription  |title=A perfect spy|newspaper=[[NewStatesman]]}} "... Rose points out indignantly, goes back to Edmund Burke."</ref> trace the idea to [[Edmund Burke]], the first of whose ''[[Letters on a Regicide Peace]]'', written in 1795 and published in 1796, included:<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/twolettersaddres00burkuoft#page/n142/mode/1up |page=137 |year=1796 |location=London |publisher=[[Rivington (publishers)|Rivington]] |title=Two letters addressed to a member of the present Parliament, on the proposals for peace with the regicide directory of France  |chapter=Letter I |first=Edmund |last=Burke |author-link=Edmund Burke }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Burke|first=Edmund |others=Foreword by Francis Canavan|title=Letters on a Regicide Peace [1795]|chapter-url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/658#Burke_0005-03_232|edition=A New Imprint of the Payne |series=Select Works of Edmund Burke|volume=3|year=1999|publisher=[[Liberty Fund]]|page=151|chapter=Letter I: On the Overtures of Peace |orig-year=1878|editor-link=Edward John Payne |editor-first=Edward John |editor-last=Payne|location=Indianapolis}}</ref> 
{{quote|Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an œconomy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.}}

The [[Economy (religion)|religious sense of "economy"]] was applied to [[religious truth]] by [[John Henry Newman]], based on Jesus' injunction not to cast [[Matthew 7:6|pearls before swine]].<ref name="Shell1993">{{cite book|last=Shell|first=Marc|title=The Economy of Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aFefxqBFC54C&pg=PA106|access-date=16 April 2015|date=1 September 1993|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=9780801846946|page=106}}</ref> Newman advocated "cautious dispensation of the truth, after the manner of a discreet and vigilant steward" while being "careful ever to maintain ''substantial'' truth".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newmanreader.org/works/apologia65/notef.html|title=Apologia pro Vita Sua (1865) – Note F. On Page 269. The Economy|last=Newman|first=John Henry|year=1865|work=Newman Reader|access-date=16 April 2015}}</ref> [[Mental reservation]] is a somewhat related idea also associated with Roman Catholic ethics.

A jocular reference to the basic concept was made by [[Mark Twain]] in ''[[Following the Equator]]'' in 1897:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/wilson/pwequat.html|title=Following the Equator: Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar|last=Twain|first=Mark|year=1897|work=Mark Twain in His Times|publisher=University of Virginia|access-date=16 April 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leavenworth|first=Charles S.|title=The Arrow War with China |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924023144060#page/n227/mode/1up |year=1901|publisher=Sampson Low, Marston & Co. |location=London|page=208|chapter=The Dawn of Peace|quote=Mark Twain once said, " Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it ! " But there is no necessity to be economical with the truth about the motives of the Cabinets of the world.}}</ref>
{{quote|Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economise it.}}

The precise phrase "economical with the truth" is attested from 1897.<ref>{{cite journal|date=14 January 1897|journal=The Iron Age|publisher=[[Chilton Company]]|volume=57|page=28|title=The Iron and Metal Trades; Birmingham |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2623544&seq=106 |quote=If you can't say its dead dull with them, one can say without being economical with the truth that they are in a condition of "masterly inactivity." }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|date=12 June 1897|journal=The Weekly Underwriter|volume=56|issue=24|page=413|quote=The insurance superintendent of Kansas is said to be very economical with the truth. That certainly is not because of his reticence for he is much given to words. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cu09126309&view=1up&seq=433 |title=[McNall, Superintendent, Scolds the Insurance Press]}}</ref> It was used in the [[New Zealand House of Representatives]] in 1923,<ref>{{cite book|title=Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives|date=26 June 1923|location=New Zealand|page=299|quote= I would advise them to think of this : that it is not well to be too economical with the truth – nothing should be suppressed.}}</ref> and the [[House of Commons of Canada]] in 1926;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC1501_03/1091?r=0&s=2|title=House of Commons Debates |last=Chaplin|first=Alexander Dew|author-link=Alexander Dew Chaplin|date=5 May 1926|page=3137|quote=Now, these triplets of truth are very economical with the truth, and if they made such statements in any private business they would not last long.|access-date=16 April 2015}}</ref> "over-economical with the truth" was used in the [[British House of Commons]] in 1968.<ref name="odq14n12" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/jul/04/prime-minister-television-broadcast#S5CV0767P0_19680704_HOC_207|title=PRIME MINISTER (TELEVISION BROADCAST)|last=Dalkeith|first=Earl of|date=4 July 1968|work=HC Deb|quote=would he openly admit that he either made a gross miscalculation, misled the people or at best had been over-economical with the truth? |author-link=John Scott, 9th Duke of Buccleuch |no-pp=y|page=vol 767 c1690|access-date=16 April 2015}}</ref> In [[Paul Brickhill]]'s 1950 book ''[[The Great Escape (book)|The Great Escape]]'', the phrase is an ironic description of the testimony of an interrogated [[Gestapo]] officer.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brickhill |first1=Paul |title=The Great Escape |orig-year=1950 |date=2000 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |page=256 |isbn=9780304356874 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/greatescape0000bric_w7l5/page/256 |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=Aftermath |quote=the Russians took him to see Scharpwinkel, a dark, ruthless man whom the Russians persuaded to speak. Though Scharpwinkel himself was economical with the truth, the details he gave implicated Wielen, and ... bit by bit the truth came out. }}</ref>

Alan Durant of [[Middlesex University]] describes the phrase prior to 1986 as having "extremely restricted currency" and as a rule used in allusion to either Burke or Twain.<ref>Durant 1996, p.4</ref>

==Political catchphrase==
"Economical with the truth" became a political [[catchphrase]] in the United Kingdom in 1986 during the ''[[Spycatcher]]'' trial in the Australian [[Supreme Court of New South Wales]].  [[Robert Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Ilminster|Robert Armstrong]], the [[Cabinet Secretary (United Kingdom)|UK Cabinet Secretary]], was questioned by then-barrister [[Malcolm Turnbull]] about a letter to the publisher asking for advance copies of a book, falsely implying that the government did not already have copies:<ref name="odq14n12" /><ref>Durant 1996, pp.4–5</ref>
*Q: So that letter contains a lie, does it not?
*A: It contains a misleading impression in that respect.
*Q: Which you knew to be misleading at the time you made it?
*A: Of course.
*Q: So it contains a lie?
*A: It is a misleading impression, it does not contain a lie, I don't think.
*Q: What is the difference between a misleading impression and a lie?
*A: You are as good at English as I am.
*Q: I am just trying to understand.
*A: A lie is a straight untruth.
*Q: What is a misleading impression – a sort of bent untruth?
*A: As one person said, it is perhaps being economical with the truth.

[[Bob Ellis]] wrote that the audience had laughed at "bent untruth", and that Armstrong expected a laugh for "economical with the truth" but got none.<ref name="Ellis2009">{{cite book|last=Ellis|first=Bob|title=And So it Went|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9JIRzPVl2wC&pg=PT150|access-date=16 April 2015|date=4 May 2009|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=9780857966025|page=150}}</ref> Political opponents of the government's actions in the ''Spycatcher'' case derided Armstrong's distinction.

In 1992, when [[Alan Clark]] was questioned at the [[Old Bailey]] by [[Geoffrey Robertson]] in an [[Arms-to-Iraq]] case, he accounted for the discrepancies between his testimony and statements he had made previously. His response became notorious:<ref name="Trewin2009">{{cite book|last=Trewin|first=Ion|author-link = Ion Trewin |title=Alan Clark: The Biography|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFVvSAaTANMC&pg=PT312|access-date=16 April 2015|date=14 September 2009|publisher=Orion|isbn=9780297857822|chapter=Ch. 19: Behind the ''actualité''}}</ref><ref name="odq70n6">[https://books.google.com/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC&pg=PA70 ''Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations'' 2007, p. 70] no.6</ref>  
* Clark: it's our old friend "economical"
* Robertson: with the truth?
* Clark: With the ''actualité''. There was nothing misleading or dishonest to make a formal or introductory comment that the Iraqis would be using the current orders for general engineering purposes. All I didn't say was 'and for making munitions'.

Alan Durant was an [[expert witness]] in a 1992 [[libel]] suit brought by a man who had been described as "economical with the truth". The [[defendant]] claimed the words did not imply the [[plaintiff]] was a liar. Durant, after examining a [[Corpus linguistics|corpus]] of uses of the phrase, felt that lying had become the default meaning, but might be over-ridden based on the [[Context (language use)|context]]. The earlier allusion to Burke or Twain was no longer common. The libel suit was [[settled out of court]].<ref>Durant 1996</ref>

==See also==
* [[Paltering]]
* [[Terminological inexactitude]]
* [[Unparliamentary language]]
* [[Half-truth]]

==References==

===Sources===
* {{cite journal |url=https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/8168/1/Economical_with_the_Truth_article_(Forensic_Linguistics).pdf |access-date=16 April 2015 |last=Durant |first=Alan |date=1996 |title=On the interpretation of allusions and other innuendo meanings in libel actions: the value of semantic and pragmatic evidence. |journal=International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law |volume=3 |number=2 |pages=195–210 |doi=10.1558/ijsll.v3i2.195 |issn=1748-8885 }}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Knowles|editor-first=Elizabeth|title=Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC |access-date=16 April 2015|date=23 August 2007|edition=3rd|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199208951}}

===Footnotes===
{{Reflist}}
{{Wiktionary}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Economical With The Truth}}
[[Category:1790s neologisms]]
[[Category:1790s quotations]]
[[Category:Edmund Burke]]
[[Category:Deception]]
[[Category:English phrases]]
[[Category:Euphemisms]]
[[Category:Political quotes]]