I was sure I’d seen the word “lie” used in a Times article recently, but I couldn’t remember where. (I’ve been sick, so we’ll blame my faulty memory on a fever.) The word jumped out at me because media outlets are loath to use it, sometimes with reason, other times preferring weasel words like “equivocate.”

Tonight’s NYT editorial explains the thinking behind their choice. I especially like this:

To say that someone has “lied,” an active verb, or has told a “lie,” a more passive, distancing noun, is to say that the person intended to deceive. In addition, Mr. Nunberg said, “a certain moral opprobrium attaches to it, a reprehensibility of motive.”

Reprehensibility of motive, indeed. Please keep up the “muscular terminology,” NYT,