September Newsletter: Never Trust a “Never”: Language, Lies, and Giuliani
Welcome to September’s round-up of all things words.
I began last month’s newsletter with a picture taken in the sun, praising the warm days. I’m writing this with the rain belting on my window and a thunderstorm booming in the sky.
After a few recent detours into the world of showbiz and sparkle, this month brings us back to more formal statements and some curious ones at that.
Mayor Incident
This statement concerning Rudy Giuliani caught my attention. Let me explain why.
It starts with a headline: Rudy has been involved in an accident. Then it veers into detail that feels unnecessary. He was flagged down before the incident, and the person flagging him was the victim of a domestic violence situation.
That level of detail seems irrelevant. If we take the statement at face value, this has nothing to do with his vehicle being hit from behind. It’s a bit like saying:
“Mayor Giuliani was listening to Taylor Swift in the car. Following this, he was struck from behind.”
That structure made me feel there might be a connection between the flagging down and the accident. Maybe the car was hit while rejoining the road. But the statement doesn’t make that clear, which raises alarms.
There’s more inside the description of the flagging down that caught my attention. It reads like a résumé entry. He attended to someone in need, that person was a domestic violence victim, Rudy assisted, called 911, and stayed to ensure her safety.
The phrase “Mayor Giuliani’s vehicle was struck” is also passive. It leaves open the possibility that the vehicle was empty, or that Rudy wasn’t driving.
So what do we have? A polished account that makes the mayor look good, and a sequence where an unrelated event is mentioned before the actual incident. It gave me the feeling that more was going on.
The police report added a few more layers. According to it, Rudy’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, was the one who called 911. But the official statement says “Mayor Giuliani … contacted 911.” Ted’s name doesn’t appear at all.
Then comes the strangest part. The report says they waited for the police, rejoined the highway, and changed direction. They were flagged down heading south. But when the accident occurred, they were going north, near the same place they’d been flagged down.
Police say they know who hit them and that nothing suspicious happened.
That might have been the end of it. But then Rudy made a public statement:
“God was very good to us. He looked after us.”
“We did the right thing, so we can feel good about ourselves, and we can be an example.”
Once again, the incident involving the domestic violence victim is linked—rhetorically at least—to the car accident. Yet all versions of the story agree they’re two separate events.
Is there something suspicious going on?
Maybe it’s just PR, using a coincidence to build Rudy’s image.
Or maybe there’s more here than anyone is saying.
NEVER a Truer Word
September’s award for most interesting use of language goes to Anne Cunningham, best friend of Donna Adelson, who testified at her trial.
Anne was asked about Donna’s personality. Instead of simply answering “no,” she used one of my favorite red-flag words: “never.”
Except for the final question, when she switched to the much more reliable “no.”
This caught my attention because “no” and “never” don’t mean the same thing.
“Never” includes a time element: it means “not at any time.”
Some of the questions included a time frame, like “Have you ever …?” But one of them called for a yes or no answer: “Is she aggressive?”. “Never” didn’t make sense in that context.
I’d guess Anne was trying to make her friend look better. “Never” might sound more persuasive than “no.” But the change in pattern—the switch to “no” at the end—might suggest something deeper. Was that “no” the only true answer? Were the earlier “never”s a way to avoid the truth?
I collect deceptive uses of “never.” It’s supposed to be definitive. But very few things in life are absolute. Here’s another one, from a mother posting to GoFundMe:
“Mia has been given a life sentence over in Dubai. Mia is only 23 years old and has NEVER done a bad thing in her life. This is a young girl who went to university to do law and unfortunately got mixed up in the wrong so-called friend and made a very stupid mistake.”
So, she’s never done a bad thing in her life—but also made a very stupid mistake?
“Never” is risky because it claims too much. Who hasn’t ever done anything wrong? In trying to defend her daughter, the mother ends up saying something that clearly isn’t true.
If you’re wondering, the “stupid mistake” was being found with 50 grams of cocaine.
Never trust a “never.”
Introductory Remarks
One of my most satisfying projects this month was for the writer Megan Fox, who asked me to analyze a series of anonymous emails. The full breakdown is linked below. But just from the first two paragraphs, I could learn quite a bit.
Megan,
My friends call me Tag, and over the past few months I’ve been following the situation regarding Laura Owens, a woman I dated and was involved with intimately from mid-late 2015 to 2016.
I am not fully ready to come forward publicly with my story but am willing to support you and the other victims specifically, with what I feel could be valuable background information and help fill in some critical information holes.
That opening, “Megan,” tells us the audience is specific. The writer is speaking to her, not to the world. Compare that to the Giuliani press release, which was addressed to everyone.
Both paragraphs boil down to: “I’m not going to tell you who I am.” But the writer avoids saying it outright. Instead, they try to mask the fact they’re hiding.
Some things that stood out:
Relationships are important to the writer. They mention friends, dating, intimacy—emotional connections.
That could suggest the writer is female. Women, in general, tend to foreground relationships more.
“Information” appears twice in the second paragraph. It’s framed as valuable and helpful. That’s bait: Ignore that I’m anonymous, I have what you want.
The phrase “background information” is used often in journalism and law—not everyday life. That’s something I kept in mind as I continued.
From two paragraphs, I picked up:
A concealed identity
Possibly a woman
Possible links to journalism or law
An effort to use valuable “information” as leverage
That’s quite a lot for such a small collection of words!
The rest of the email series continued in the same tone.
CAPS Off
If you follow my work, you’ll know my mission is to make this kind of language analysis as accessible as possible.
I’ve been developing a framework to help people spot the most common tells in lying, deception, and truth-telling.
I’ve written about it, and you can download it here: https://statementfox.com/introduction-to-caps-framework/
I Need Your Help!
This post from an online problem forum was one of the most confusing things I’ve read recently:
“I have had a glass of wine tonight after work, thought why not? Husband is home and is furious, speaking to me like a disgrace and slamming cupboards. I now have an uncomfortable silence which isn’t quite a silence because he’s saying he’s not giving me the silent treatment.”
The tense confusion is where it starts to wobble.
“I have had” suggests the wine was already consumed
But “is home,” “is furious,” “speaking,” “slamming” all happen in the present
And then we get “I now have,” “which isn’t,” “he’s saying”—more present-tense fallout
Here’s my take:
The wine drinking likely happened
The phrase “thought why not?” hints at some emotional backstory or guilt
Her description of her husband’s reaction is harder to trust—she avoids using pronouns in those lines, which could be a sign of deception, distancing or minimising
She does not give a reason for her husband’s reaction, could this be due to the backstory?
The “silence” likely comes from her, not him—he’s still speaking
But that’s just a guess. What do you think? Feel free to speculate in the comments or reply to this email.
Until October,
Jack
She doesn’t “claim” her husband by saying “my husband.” For all we know, it could be the husband of a friend or family member.