Does anyone know the origin of the expression "white lie"?

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A student asked me today, wondering if it had any racial overtones. I didn't know, and couldn't find it with the resources I had available to me. Any ideas?

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:46 (twenty years ago)

It comes from the same medieval type thinking that gave us "black magic" (bad, harmful, worship the devil type) and "white magic" (sympathetic, helpful hand, charms, for good intent).

I don't *think* it's racially based, more about the dualistic worldview that would be expressed in black/white, evil/good.

― Boris and the Johnsons (kate), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:50 (twenty years ago)

I would have assumed it just sprang from white meaning "on the side of the forces of good" (like white knight etc).

x-post.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:52 (twenty years ago)

The black/white dualism is pretty much worldwide, and doesn't seem to stem from anything much more complicated than "it's dangerous at night."

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:54 (twenty years ago)

George Bush Doesn't Care About White Lies

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:54 (twenty years ago)

It is named after Mr. Gerald White, a notoriously friendly and good natured liar in the early-mid 1600s. He was famously unjustly imprisoned and executed by George Villiers, the first duke of Buckingham.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:55 (twenty years ago)

Gerald White sported a massive, grizzly bear, in the style of the day. His twin brother Gerard, however, was clean-shaven. Gerard's propensity for unashamed, self-serving untruths is the source of the expression "bald-faced lie."

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:58 (twenty years ago)

If I understand the origin correctly, it is a lie so innocent that it will not stain your soul with sin, leaving it unspotted, as it were.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 27 February 2006 17:59 (twenty years ago)

q.v. a "black compliment," which has nothing to do with getting props.

― elmo, patron saint of nausea (allocryptic), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:00 (twenty years ago)

You're channelling Baran, aren't you?

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:00 (twenty years ago)

white lie, white he !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:07 (twenty years ago)

....this is some good stuff, including the BS!

(nabisco, I can't grant you this credit...but you might want to attempt Mrs. Horntweeter's creative writing course...that's where all of the good liars find success)

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:10 (twenty years ago)

If "Mrs. Horntweeter" is another name for B3n M4rcus, then you're too late.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:23 (twenty years ago)

According to this, the earliest citation the OED has found for the phrase is from 1741.

I could get off my arse and check this, I suppose.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:25 (twenty years ago)

I believe it was originally a golfing term, for when yr ball landed on a pile of snow (or possibly birdshit).
"Oh come on, MacDuff, it's just a white lie. Play through."

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

Horntweeter's class is filling up quickly.

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 27 February 2006 18:58 (twenty years ago)

Threads like this one make Mondays worth living.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 27 February 2006 19:09 (twenty years ago)

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