• mendacity • Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. Untruthfulness,
the tendency or habit of lying, deceiving, misrepresenting the
truth. 2. A lie or falsehood. Notes: Today's Good Word comes
with an adjective, mendacious "untruthful, lying" and an adverb,
mendaciously. It may also be combined with the second element of
another Good Word, stultiloquent, creating mendaciloquent,
meaning "speaking with a forked tongue", that is to say, "in
lies". In Play: In arguing to repeal the new US heath-care bill,
Representative Steven King of Iowa last week applauded the
Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John Boehner, in
these terms: "I would make the point that the leader and the
speaker [of the House] have established their integrity and
their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't believe
it can be effectively challenged." Mr. King of Iowa apparently
thought mendacity meant "truthfulness", so we are running this
word to prevent its further misuse. Please contact your
congressman and urge him or her to s