taradiddle
noun

- a petty lie; a trivial or childish falsehood

- a petty lie or pretentious nonsense, often used to describe someone who is exaggerating or making things up to impress others

- an unimportant lie, especially one told to avoid hurting someone's feelings or to avoid minor trouble

Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN



"Taradiddle" first appeared in English around the 1790s, making it a relatively recent addition to the language. It's what linguists call an "expressive formation" - a word created specifically to sound like what it means.

The two parts: "tara-" likely chosen for its light, bouncing quality; and "-diddle", a reduplicative element that was popular in English for creating dismissive or nonsensical words.

The "-diddle" ending follows a common English pattern seen in words like: “fiddle-faddle" (nonsense),” dilly-dally" (to waste time), ”higgledy-piggledy" (in disorder). This pattern typically creates words that sound playful, dismissive, or trivial.

Unlike many English words, taradiddle has no Latin, Greek, or Germanic ancestry. It's a purely English invention, created during the late Georgian period when there was a fashion for such whimsical, made-up words.

Taradiddle's silly, almost nonsensical sound perfectly matches its meaning - a petty lie or bit of nonsense,… a delightful example of sound symbolism in English - where the form of the word directly reflects its meaning.



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BORN TO LIE ?

The ability to lie appears to be a basic feature of human language itself. This capacity seems to exist in every human society across the globe.

Throughout history, explorers and researchers have claimed to discover cultures that "have no word for lying." These romantic stories often focused on Native American tribes or Amazonian peoples portrayed as naturally honest. However, careful scientific study has proven these claims false. Such ideas usually reflect wishful thinking and cultural stereotypes rather than real ethnographic evidence.

While all cultures practice deception, they handle it very differently. Each society has its own rules about "prosocial lies"—lies told to be polite or socially appropriate when telling the harsh truth would otherwise be rude or hurtful. What counts as a helpful lie in Japan might be considered dishonest in Germany, the Netherlands, or Scandinavia.

Lies serve important social purposes. They help us spare other people's feelings, maintain personal privacy, and avoid unnecessary conflicts in daily life.

In the end, being “economical with the truth” is not just a flaw in human nature but also a reminder of our creativity, empathy, and ability to imagine other perspectives. When used with care, this same capacity that allows us to deceive can also help us write great stories and nurture kindness.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

ambiguity, balderdash, baloney, bamboozler, barefaced lie, bilgewater, blatant fib, bluff, boloney, bosh, bunk, bunkum, canard, claptrap, cock-and-bull story, codswallop, con, counterfeit, cover story, creative truth, deceit, deceitful tale, deception, deception play, distortion, drool, economical with the truth, embellishment, equivocation, exaggeration, fable, fabrication, fairy tale, fake, fake story, false statement, falsehood, falsification, falsity, fib, fibbing nonsense, fiblet, fiction, fish story, flapdoodle, flimflam, half-truth, having selective amnesia, hedge, hogwash, hokum, horsefeathers, humbug, invention, jive, lie, little white lie, load of rubbish, lying through one's teeth, malarkey, mendacity, misrepresentation, misstatement, mumbo jumbo, nonsense, obliquity, perjury, phony story, piffle, poppycock, porky, porky pie, pretense, prevarication, pulling a fast one, pulling the wool over someone's eyes, putting on an act, sham, smoke and mirrors, snow job, spoof, spinning a yarn, story, stretcher, stretching the truth, tale, tall story, tall tale, TARADIDDLE, telling porkies, tommyrot, tosh, twaddle, untruth, white lie, whopper, yarn

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SMUGGLE
 OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

"The capacity for ‘TARADIDDLING’ seems to be universal, woven into all times and cultures — and I sometimes wonder: what happens if AI learns to do the same? Would we still call it a tool, or something closer to a rival?”

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P L E A S E   S U P P O R T   O W A D