{"id":4551,"date":"2025-02-07T18:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T18:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=4551"},"modified":"2025-02-07T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T18:40:08","slug":"tall-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=4551","title":{"rendered":"Tall Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had a conversation with someone that had just returned from Maine recently. He said it was really<\/em> cold there. I asked, \u201cHow cold was it?\u201d He said, \u201cIt was so cold that\u2026\u201d Well, you get the idea, he went on to exaggerate making the cold the worst weather in recorded history. A lying tale like that is often called a whopper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, as I often do, I got to thinking about our language\u2026 we all exaggerate sometimes and exaggeration is sometimes called hyperbole in language. Someone by the name of B.A. Boykin wrote, \u201cOutside the realm of both probability and possibility, the world of lies is the world of supermen who perform miracles midway between nonsense and magic and who inhabit a land of giant vegetables and delightfully preposterous canny or composite features.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These \u201cwhoppers\u201d have inspired Liars\u2019 Clubs. Members of the clubs try to outdo each other in dreaming up the most fantastic, impossible and creative yarns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess the opposite of exaggeration is the understatement. Most everyone has heard about Mark Twain\u2019s famous reaction to an obituary notice prematurely announcing his death. He said, \u201cThe report of my death is slightly exaggerated.\u201d \u201cSlightly exaggerated\u201d is an understatement. Understatements are often made as an attempt at humor. Like someone going through all kinds of physical dangers and emerging battered and bruised. \u201cI had a bit of bad luck\u201d might be a classic understatement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure why I got off on this track today \u2014 I was just thinking about people I know and a lot of them fall into the category of exaggerators or those that tend to understate things. And they kind of both fall into the \u201ctall tales\u201d category. I think that\u2019s a good thing \u2014 the world would be boring without them.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a conversation with someone that had just returned from Maine recently. He said it was really cold there. I asked, \u201cHow cold was it?\u201d He said, \u201cIt was so cold that\u2026\u201d Well, you get the idea, he went … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4552,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions\/4552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}