It is also impolite to tell a person that he or she is being rude.

Instead of accusing someone of lying or telling him he is wrong, you might say, I believe you are mistaken.

“I believe you are mistaken, Mr. Renquist.”

Mr. Renquist: “Are you calling me a liar?”

It would, of course, be very rude of Mr. Renquist to reply in this manner. Were he to do so, a person following the Rules of Politeness would have no recourse except to quietly demur and walk away. A person following the Rules of Politeness naturally wishes that everyone else would go by the same playbook. They don’t, though. If truthfulness and politeness were ever in style, they are not anymore.

Half truths are the cousins of white lies, attempts to soften the rough edges of reality. Back in the days of informal letter writing, a person might use the phrase “ha ha” after making an uncomplimentary statement, as in “Leave it to you to hold everyone up! You’d be late for your own funeral, ha ha.” These days, the acronym LOL, which stands for Laugh Out Loud, is used in the same way in social media. Similarly, in conversation, an offensive comment is sometimes prefaced by “No offense, but — “ and an interruption is prefaced by “Not to interrupt, but — .”

Despite the proliferation of “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” (to quote Al Franken’s book by the same title), television newscasters have been doing their best in recent years to come up with other ways to describe untruths. More and more, we hear words like dissimulation, disingenuous, equivocation, verisimilitude, misrepresentation, falsification, exaggeration and gross exaggeration. I don’t think anyone has topped Kellyanne Conway’s phrase “alternative fact.”

When people finally get to the word lie, it seems it isn’t strong enough. We hear politicians use the terms craven, audacious and shameless to describe the lies of other politicians.

According to Merriam-Webster, the term bare-faced lie originated in the 16th century, and the phrase is still considered acceptable, but now rarely used. In the middle of the 20th century, bare-faced was largely replaced by bald-faced. I thought that bold-faced lie was correct, but Merriam-Webster says not; bald-faced lie is preferable.

It is slightly less rude to call a statement an untruth or a half truth than to call it a lie. Misstatement is usually used when someone is trying to take something back without admitting to having meant it at the time.

“You called Mr. Renquist a veritable monster of mendacity.”

“I did not.”

“We have it on tape.”

“That was a misstatement.” Or, “That was taken out of context.”

Slang terms include whopper, stretcher, fish story and jive turkey. If you run out of words, you can always fall back on that childhood classic, liar, liar, pants on fire.

In everyday conversation words that used to denote disbelief now imply that something is good or positive. Awesome, amazing, incredible and unbelievable are now used pretty much interchangeably, as in “The chocolate pudding cake is unbelievable (substitute incredible, awesome or amazing),” but amazing is edging out the other four. I suppose that a person who is able to use all five words in conversation can boast a greater command of the language. Having a varied vocabulary on the tip of one’s tongue no doubt reveals the speaker to be a more well-rounded person than someone who simply says that everything is amazing all of the time, which is also kind of lazy.

Then too, there’s the fact that usually when a person says that something is amazing, he or she is exaggerating.

I know this may seem strange, but the word incredible has a meaning other than amazing, coming as it does from the Latin credere, to believe. Credo means “I believe.” If you are credulous, you may be gullible. If, on the other hand, you are incredulous, you are unwilling or unable to believe something.

As my friend Biff would say–and often does–Are you calling me a liar?

Not in so many words, Biff.

Would I lie to you? Have a good week.

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the News for more than 20 years.)