Improve your vocabulary with 3 TED talks a Month Challenge. This is an language analysis of the TED, focused on vocabulary for ESL learners.
” A half-truth is a whole lie”
-Yiddish Proverb
The ted talk I chose for this week is called, “how to spot a liar”, by Pamela Meyer. She wrote the book “lie spotting” and she gave a talk at TED about how to recognize a lie and seek more truth in our society.
Video
I recommend watching this video several times because she talks fast.
Jane’s summary
As Pamela joked in beginning, we are all liars, not single one of us can be completely free of lying. (She calls this, “post-truth society”.) However, there is difference between deception and simply white-lying to defend ourselves. Deception can be dangerous in many ways, most of the time, psychologically and financially, so recognizing somebody is lying with bad intentions to harm us is very important to seek truth and build trust amongst ourselves. She points out lying can’t happen with only one person, but always involves a person who is believing the lie, so it is important the subject who get lied to recognize it and fight it. Pamela said, there are obvious body languages of lying, such as shrugs and fake smile. Not only that, a liar’s language in detail contains certain characteristics such as putting down the others and excessively strong denial, which can be spotted if your are trained to be aware. She ended the talk with a example video of a mother who lost a child and stressed how truth-seeking is important in everyday life to be our true selves and make a safe environment for everybody.
(Write your own summary!)
Vocabulary
I listed some of the key and useful vocabulary out of words used in the video. Try to learn them, please.
- lie-spotting: finding a lie or liar
- go an extra mile: go further and deeper in positive way
- ultimately: in the end (for a goal)
- deception: lie to people with wrong way to take advantage or harm them
- cooperative act: a doing you do together with someone else
- mere utterance: just saying
- get lied to: subject or receiver of lie
- for the sake of: for
- unwilling: not happy to do
- undermine: to think lightly or lowly of
- crux: difficult problem
- fill gaps: fill the difference between
- not granted: not given
- covert: not openly shown
- hard-wired: deeply in somebody’s mind
- blame: putting fault in others
- concealment: hiding something
- bluff: act like they have something they don’t have.
- epidemic: study involving population, statistics
- in flashes: ignoring details, in parts
- strict vs. lenient: rule following vs. opposite of rule following
- moral superiority: belief that someone is better than another, a false belief
- rapport: building positive and trustful relationship
- authentic: original and sincere
- integrity: adherence to right and wrong
- explicit: make it clear and detail, with no doubt
- marginalized: be excluded.
Also, practice the words with this link below, where you can use flashcards to memorize, listen to how it sounds, and see the exact definition. (Linked below)
https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/8664681
Comment
Level: advanced
Theme: law and social justice
“The talk is little too fast but it is filled with sophisticated level of vocabularies, especially expressions and idioms. I think it would be great way to improve your listening to fast-paced speech and learning appropriate vocabularies in post secondary education. Also, it makes you think what seems obvious and normal in different point of view: a moral one”-Jane
I hope it helped, thanks.