Is 'exaggeration' just another form of lying?

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Hi,
I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but I'm trying to get my head around this.

I detest lying, and certain people around me exaggerate alot and it "grates" in my brain.

Why do people do this?.

Hello,

I would say so, but with most people I find that giving them something like a "delta" in what they say allows for them to speak in a fashion that I deem truthful. So if someone says that it is hotter than hell, and from the context of the conversation you can tell that you are neither in hell, the place is on fire, and there isn't the scent of sulphur, then you can safely say that the person isn't being truthful in their scope. Yet, if you can determine that the area is what you would describe as more hot than cold then you might be able to regard the comment an exaggeration. So you can imagine that the person is being overall truthful in their communication by applying a delta. Such that the reality is similar to what they are saying, though not exact.

To actually answer the question, I think that people are trying to convey emotion through exaggeration and not just information. So you can think of communication as a spectrum, and you have information on one end and emotion on the other. The more information, the less emotion and vice versa. So by communicating emotion over something that is strictly information necessitates a smudging over details.

People tend to exaggerate when they're angry about something, to make it sound worse than what it is. Even I do it sometimes.

Some people push exaggeration to the point of it being lying, especially if they misread a situation and then exaggerate the stuff that surrounds their misinterpretation. This is often how rumors start.

I've noticed when people are relaying humorous anecdotes, they'll often embellish the truth as a means of getting more laughs, or exaggerate something emotional to project whatever main emotions they're feeling in a convincing manner.

I'm also reminded of white lies too.

On the whole, I wouldn't call it lying per say. It's just a way of gauging with peers. As long as the embellishment is nearer or rounding the truth, in contrast to compulsive liars who lie and make up stories to gain attention.

Exaggeration is a lie related to a fact by a ratio. My ex seemed to be stuck in a loop, beginning with her exaggerating slightly to get others to see something as being as important as she did. We noticed, and then started discounting her statements, which then got wilder in compensation until we were at factors around four on mundane affairs, and seeing some total fabrications mixed in with that as camouflage.

Exaggeration and dramatic hyperbole are less accurate, but they are socially accepted because the actual meaning is usually clear (to NT, at least) and it conveys information about the speaker's emotional attitude towards the subject.

I think of it as a superimposition of strongly-felt opinions on top of fact, which incidentally distorts the fact. In my head I separate them, correct the fact for the distortion, and think of it as though the person had said each part explicitly.

I used to be much more irritated by it. It seemed like lying. But it's really a way of enriching a channel of communication.

People exaggerate because they think a problem is bigger than it really is. My anxiety makes me exaggerate because I really do believe what I am saying. Even mental illnesses out there make you exaggerate like OCD if you are so obsessed with cleanness. If it's not clean how you want it to be, it's dirty and they did a terrible job cleaning it.

Exaggerating is also used for humor. "I am so hungry I can eat the entire buffet." "You talk so loud you wake up the entire building." "If you keep losing weight, I will eventually break you."

My Mum must have told me at least million times not to exagerate.......

Exageration for comic/humerous effect I am fine with, but dislike exageration as one upmanship.

I think sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Hyperbole is a known form of communicating, done for emphasis or fun rather than to be taken literally. Other times the speaker is fired up emotionally, sees things amplified and communicates them as they see them, which may be genuine but not the literal truth.

Other times it's designed to mislead, and then it's a form of lying. It seems to get forgiven a lot, and it's often harder to prove than a downright lie. And there are more subtle ways of exaggerating, such as leaving out the data that goes against what the speaker wants you to think. That's even harder to pin down - how do you know if it was deliberate or not? Again, people don't necessarily expect 100% impartiality. The whole justice system is based on the idea that you can best find out the truth by setting 2 barristers against each other in a competitive war of words.