Exaggeration

Story of Exaggeration

There was a sailor who worked on the same boat for three years. One night he got drunk. This was the first time it had ever happened. The captain recorded it in the log, “The sailor was drunk tonight.” The sailor read it, and he knew this comment would affect his career, so he went to the captain, apologized and asked the captain to add that it only happened once in three years because that was the complete truth. The captain refused and said, “What I have written in the log is the truth.”

The next day it was the sailor’s turn to fill in the log. He wrote, “The captain was sober tonight.” The captain read the comment and asked the sailor to change or add to it explaining the complete truth because this implied that the captain was drunk every other night. The sailor told the captain that what he had written in the log was the truth.

Both statements were true but they conveyed misleading messages.