--- title: Soft words for hard things: crime, prison and the police and lying and honesty — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Soft words for hard things: crime, prison and the police and lying and honesty», a lesson of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Stealing, killing and lying are things people are ashamed of, so they hide them behind s --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / Soft words for hard things: crime, pri… # Soft words for hard things: crime, prison and the police and lying and honesty Lesson 28 of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/0/) — Stealing, killing and lying are things people are ashamed of, so they hide them behind softer words. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/1/) — Officials use long words that sound like paperwork: stealing money becomes "misappropriation of funds", fraud becomes "irregularities", a lie becomes an "inoperative statement". - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/2/) — Ordinary people joke instead: stolen goods "fell off the back of a lorry", and a liar is "telling porkies". - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/4/) — A vivid example: a politician who says he "misremembered" may simply have lied. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/5/) — "Misappropriation of funds" means stealing money that one was trusted to look after, such as a club's treasurer (the person who looks after its money) taking it. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/6/) — "Irregularities" in official reports means fraud (cheating people out of money) or other wrongdoing. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/7/) — "Fell off the back of a lorry" is a British joke meaning the goods were stolen. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/8/) — "Fell off a truck" is the US joke meaning the goods were stolen. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/9/) — "Liberate" is a jokey way to say steal. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/10/) — "Sleep with the fishes" is US gangster slang for being murdered and dumped in water. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/11/) — "The ultimate penalty" means the death penalty: the law kills (executes) the criminal. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/12/) — "Under the influence" means drunk or on drugs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/13/) — "Social engineering" means tricking people into giving away secrets such as passwords. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/14/) — "Enhanced pat-down" is a US official phrase for a thorough body search, for example at an airport. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/15/) — A "fib" is a small lie. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/16/) — A "white lie" is a harmless lie told to spare someone's feelings. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/17/) — "Stretching the truth" means exaggerating so much that it becomes lying. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/18/) — "Creative with the truth" is a jokey way to say lying. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/19/) — A "tall tale" is an invented, unbelievable story. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/20/) — "Telling porkies" is British slang for telling lies, from the rhyming slang "porky pies" for lies. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/21/) — "Telling stories" is what British adults say to a child who is lying. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/22/) — "Misremember" is a US official way to say someone remembered wrongly or lied about the past. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/23/) — An "inoperative statement" is a US political phrase for a statement now admitted to be false. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/28-stealing-and-lying/24/) — "Strategic misrepresentation" means deliberate lying to win approval, for example hiding a project's real cost. - ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: crime, prison and the police](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/27-crime-prison-and-police/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: lying and honesty and drinking and drugs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/29-lying-and-drinking/) - ↑ back to [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/)