“Economical with the truth”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

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 euphemistically to denote dissimulation (misleading by withholding pertinent information) or else used ironically to mean outright lying.

Origins

The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations^[1] and Kenneth Rose^[2] trace the idea to Edmund Burke, the first of whose Letters on a Regicide Peace, written in 1795 and published in 1796, included:^[3]^[4]

The religious sense of "economy" was applied to religious truth by John Henry Newman, based on Jesus' injunction not to cast pearls before swine.^[5] Newman advocated "cautious dispensation of the truth, after the manner of a discreet and vigilant steward" while being "careful ever to maintain substantial truth".^[6] 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:^[7]^[8]

The precise phrase "economical with the truth" is attested from 1897.^[9]^[10] It was used in the New Zealand House of Representatives in 1923,^[11] and the House of Commons of Canada in 1926;^[12] "over-economical with the truth" was used in the British House of Commons in 1968.^[1]^[13] The phrase was used somewhat ironically to refer to one of the Gestapo involved in the rounding up and killing of escaped PoW's following The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in Paul Brickhill's book, The Great Escape, originally published in 1950.^[14] 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.^[15]

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, when Robert Armstrong, the UK Cabinet Secretary, was questioned by Malcolm Turnbull, and described a letter thus:^[1]^[16]

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.^[17] 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:^[18]^[19]

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 of uses of the phrase, felt that lying had become the default meaning, but might be over-ridden based on the context. The earlier allusion to Burke or Twain was no longer common. The libel suit was settled out of court.^[20]

See also

References

Sources

Footnotes

1. ^¹²[https://books.google.com/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC&pg=PT56 Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations 2007, p.56]
2. ^{{cite news|first=Francis |last=Beckett |date=14 April 2003|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200304140040 |subscription=Y |title=A perfect spy|newspaper=NewStatesman}} "... Rose points out indignantly, goes back to Edmund Burke."
3. ^{{cite book |chapterurl=https://archive.org/stream/twolettersaddres00burkuoft#page/n142/mode/1up |page=137 |year=1796 |location=London |publisher=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 |authorlink=Edmund Burke }}
4. ^{{cite book|last=Burke|first=Edmund |others=Foreword by Francis Canavan|title=Letters on a Regicide Peace [1795]|chapterurl=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}}
5. ^{{cite book|last=Shell|first=Marc|title=The Economy of Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aFefxqBFC54C&pg=PA106|accessdate=16 April 2015|date=1 September 1993|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=9780801846946|page=106}}
6. ^{{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|accessdate=16 April 2015}}
7. ^{{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|accessdate=16 April 2015}}
8. ^{{cite book|last=Leavenworth|first=Charles S.|title=The Arrow War with China |chapterurl=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.}}
9. ^{{cite journal|date=14 January 1897|title=.|journal=Iron Age|publisher=Chilton Company|volume=57|page=28|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." }}
10. ^{{cite journal|date=12 June 1897|title=.|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.}}
11. ^{{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.}}
12. ^{{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|authorlink=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.|accessdate=16 April 2015}}
13. ^{{cite web|url=http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/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? |authorlink=John Scott, 9th Duke of Buccleuch |nopp=Y|page=vol 767 c1690|accessdate=16 April 2015}}
14. ^Paul Brickhill: The Great Escape -reprinted in Marks and Spencer's Military Classics; passage on Page 256
15. ^Durant 1996, p.4
16. ^Durant 1996, pp.4–5
17. ^{{cite book|last=Ellis|first=Bob|title=And So it Went|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9JIRzPVl2wC&pg=PT150|accessdate=16 April 2015|date=4 May 2009|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=9780857966025|page=150}}
18. ^{{cite book|last=Trewin|first=Ion|authorlink = Ion Trewin |title=Alan Clark: The Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFVvSAaTANMC&pg=PT158|accessdate=16 April 2015|date=14 September 2009|publisher=Orion|isbn=9780297857822|page=158}}
19. ^[https://books.google.com/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC&pg=PT212 Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations 2007, p.212]
20. ^Durant 1996