Honesty and Lying: English Idioms for Fibs and Whoppers

Katie asks Donnie for a word that means a really big lie. He stalls, then checks: "does it involve a colour?" It doesn't — but seconds later he lands on whopper and immediately tries it out on her: "If I told you I used to be an astronaut…?" That is the shape of this episode. Two people in a park, one describing an expression, the other guessing it out loud, with all the hesitation and laughter that real guessing involves.

What you'll hear in this episode

Katie sat down with Donnie to work through ten colloquial expressions about honesty and lying, describing each one and letting him guess before you do. He gets a fib almost instantly, and adds where you'd actually hear it: "sometimes we use that with children…are you fibbing?" Katie agrees it's "quite a nice word isn't it, a soft word?" — which is the point. Not all words for lying carry the same weight.

From there the conversation moves up the scale. Donnie offers two answers where Katie expected one — to come clean and to own up — and produces a neat example on the spot: "Eventually he owned up to being a fibber." When they reach to be economical with the truth, he spots what kind of English it is straight away: "this is a very political phrase. I didn't lie, I was economical with the truth." Katie pushes back — if you were a politician, she says, "it could have been a whopper!"

In the second half, Donnie's guessing strategy becomes explicit: "Does it involve part of the body?" He tries a barefaced lie first, then gets lying through your teeth, and explains the difference himself: "there's no fibbing or bending the truth here." There's also a white lie about a dress, and a short discussion of whether straight up is American, with Donnie noting it's "becoming more popular in… Britain".

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Colloquial 3.24 — Honesty & Lying
Pack	Colloquial 3
Level	3
Duration	13 minutes 26 seconds
Speakers	Katie and Donnie
Recorded	In a park
Audio	Free
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

The useful thing about this recording is that English has a whole scale of words for lying, and the conversation walks up it. A fib is soft enough for children. A whopper is enormous but still faintly comic. To bend the truth and to be economical with the truth are euphemisms — Donnie names them as such — while lying through your teeth and a barefaced lie are accusations. If you only know "to lie", you can't hear any of that.

You'll also learn how the expressions behave grammatically. Katie draws out to fib as a verb, a fib as a noun and a fibber as a person. She shows to tell you the truth and to be honest with you working not as declarations of honesty at all, but as ways to soften a refusal: "Do you want to go for a drink? Well, to tell the truth, I'm a bit tired…"

Because Donnie is genuinely guessing, you get natural clue-asking language — "can you give me a clue?", "does it involve part of the body?" — plus the interruptions, false starts and overlapping agreement of unscripted speech. The Meaning and Pronunciation sections then slow everything down: a question, the answer, and a model sentence to repeat after the beep, such as "He owned up to eating my cake."

Vocabulary from this episode

The workbook glossary grades each expression for informality, so you know who you can safely say it to.

to fib / a fib (1) – a small lie. Donnie's first answer, and the one he links to talking to children.
a whopper (1) – a big lie. The astronaut claim, and the politician joke.
a white lie (1) – a lie which you tell so that you don't hurt or upset someone. Katie's awful new dress.
to own up to something / to come clean (1) – to admit that you did something.
to bend the truth (1) – to say something which is not totally true, usually so that you can get something.
to be economical with the truth (1) – to say something which is not totally true, usually so that you can get something.
to tell you the truth / to be honest with you (1) – used to introduce an opinion and to show you are telling the truth.
straight up (1) – honestly.
lying through your teeth (2) – a strong way to say lying, the person knows what they are doing.
a barefaced lie (2) – a lie where the person shows no bad feeling for telling a lie, even when other people know they lied, a strong lie.
to not trust someone as far as you can throw them / not trust a word someone says (2) – to not trust someone at all.

In the workbook

The workbook for 3.24 gives you the full transcript of both halves of the conversation, so you can check anything you missed in Donnie's faster runs of speech, and the scripts for both Meaning and Pronunciation drills.

The glossary is graded 1 to 3: level 1 is informal but fine with most people in most situations, level 2 is for people you know well, and level 3 comes with the warning "Don't use this with your mother-in-law!!!" Every expression here is a 1 or a 2, which tells you something about how ordinary these phrases really are.

Then there are two exercises with answers. Practice Exercise 1 asks you to identify the lie: what do you call it when someone cooks you a horrible meal and you say it was delicious? Which is stronger, lying through your teeth or bending the truth? Practice Exercise 2 is gap-fill — "Come on - ______. Who made this mess?" — using the same expressions in complete sentences.

The workbook is part of the all-in-one pack at €39, which covers every episode.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Is the conversation scripted?

No. Katie and Donnie's conversation is unscripted — that's why he asks for clues and guesses wrongly. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Which of these can I use at work?

The glossary marks most of them 1, meaning informal but usable with most people. Lying through your teeth, a barefaced lie and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him are marked 2 — keep those for people you know well. They're accusations, after all.

Is straight up British or American?

Katie suspects it's used more in American English, and Donnie agrees it's "quite American" — but says that, like a lot of American phrases, it's becoming more popular in Britain.

What's the difference between a fib and a whopper?

Size, and tone. A fib is small and forgivable; a whopper is enormous. Katie describes them as opposites, and notes neither is a very serious word.

Do I need the workbook to follow the audio?

No — the audio is free and works on its own. The workbook adds the transcript, the graded glossary and the two practice exercises with answers, which is where the expressions actually stick.

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