Having an interesting linguistic thought about the word “honestly.”

And other similar words and phrases like, “to be honest,” “to tell you the truth,” “truthfully,” “frankly,” “really” etc.

Which are kinda odd words to add into any sentence, because, literally, they mean nothing more than “this statement is true.” Which is supposed to be the default assumption anyway, so specifying it is kinda strange.

And that may be why I’ve seen those words on lists of “tells” or “signs that someone’s lying.”

Which are lists I don’t trust, in general.

Because in my experience, pretty much all “signs of lying” are actually signs of “fearing disbelief” or “making an active effort to be believed.”

And, if they do correlate with actual lying, this is because most people, in general, are not that likely to think about whether or not they’ll be believed unless they are lying.

But– like many general tendencies– that’s got enough exceptions in real life to make it nearly useless.

And extremely harmful to people who are worried about being disbelieved practically all the time, because (usually due to some type of messed-up societal prejudice) that has been their experience throughout life, no matter how honest they’re being.

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But that whole issue is beside the point. In terms of my original point here, anyway.

Because all of this, important as it is, seems irrelevant to the “honestly” type of sentence modifiers.

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I’ve been noticing that I use them quite often. And the fact that they’re sometimes treated as “signs of lying” got me a little self-conscious about that– and then got me linguistically curious, wondering just why I do use them.

Because the situations where I use them don’t feel like situations where I worry that I might be disbelieved.

Mostly, my word choice is based on a sense of “the sentence feels right.” Not always for a clearly articulated reason. Just an intuitive feeling, that this way of wording the sentence makes it clearer and/or more reflective of the idea I’m trying to communicate.

When I try to analyze that feeling– by removing or adding words and observing how the feeling changes– I can gain more insight into what a word really contributes.

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“Honestly” seems to contribute an idea of “what I’m saying may seem a bit surprising.”

But not on the level of “I’m worried you might not believe it.” Just on the level of, “I acknowledge this is a little odd, and I want you to understand that I’m aware of that.”

It’s like using the word “but” instead of “and.” Just a little alert that “what comes next might not be what you expect.”

If there’s anything adjacent to a “fear of disbelief,” it’s perhaps a concern that the listener may find the revelation so strange that they think they misheard, or think it’s intended as a joke.

And an attempt to make a preemptive clarification, to avoid this misunderstanding.

An example would be the difference between “I think he’s sexy” and “Honestly? I think he’s sexy!”

(Perhaps, I guess, the term may be akin to “hear me out.”)

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All the different words that can fill this niche do have some variation in what they communicate. At least in the ways I’ve seen them used, in my own experience.

I think “not gonna lie” is similar… but also carries the acknowledgement that the truth you’re telling is an admission some people might find embarrassing enough to lie about. Not you though.

Not gonna lie, I find him sexy.

Not gonna lie, I have written filthy fanfic about him.

Every word has its own important uses, and I think that’s beautiful. <3