…Representative-elect George Santos of New York? His self-described actions are “embellishments.” According to Merriam Webster the word “embellish” means “to make something more appealing or attractive with fanciful or decorative details.” That is the core of advertising – using words to make the product more appealing, desirable, economic or some other key attribute to garner the potential buyer’s interest and ultimately for them to purchase the item. We might disagree with a product’s description, the embellishment, but we can agree their is an actual product. Back to George Santos.There isn’t any “product” laying under Mr. Santos’ claims. You can’t embellish your position at a company for which you never worked. So, we need another slate of candidate words to describe our would be Congressman. Courtesy of Merriam Webster, here is a slate of words potentially more suitable for Mr. Santos:

• A fabulist: a creator or writer of fables especially that carry a moral lesson, a professional teller of tales or an inventor of falsehoods (a nice way to say “liar”)
• Equivocate – to use unclear language especially to deceive or mislead someone
• Mendacious –  from the Latin word mendax, meaning “lying” or “false.” It serves to be a more erudite way to call someone a liar.
• Prevaricate – to avoid telling the truth by not directly answering a question
• Dissemble – to hide under a false appearance. The word comes from the Latin dissimulare, “to conceal“ or “to disguise”
• Palter – The word began as a word meaning “to mumble indistinctly,” and evolved to mean “to act insincerely or deceitfully,” “to use trickery,” or “to equivocate”
• And then there are the old standbys: liar, fibber, deceiver and should Mr. Santos end up before a grand jury or a trial, let us hope his embellishment do not become perjury.