this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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“We make a mess of things when we start lying.”
It’s written in an older English style. Essentially it’s just the first one you’ve mentioned.
The ‘first’ in the second half of the phrase isn’t relevant in current times but would have been common to include in sayings like this - it’s more noting that you have the intention of lying, not that you’ve found yourself doing so off the cuff.
It’s like this: “if you are going out there to lie about something, this is going to go to shit”. Rather than, “this is going to shit because it’s the first time you’re lying”, that’s a far too literal take on older English.
And for any non-native English speakers - ‘practice’ is the act of doing something, as opposed to ‘practise’ being learning/mastering through repetition.