Of American-English origin, the expression serial liar designates an inveterate liar.
This expression occurs, for example, in the following about the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson (born 1964), by the British journalist and author John Crace (born 1956), published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Wednesday 8th September 2021:
Another day, another broken promise for serial liar Boris Johnson
Labour fail to make hay over PM’s trashing of national insurance and pensions pledges
There can be benefits to being a serial liar. While politicians with a reputation for honesty can find their careers ended by one broken promise, those, like Boris Johnson, for whom the truth is by and large an unknown country, can skate by unscathed. Simply because no one expects him to keep his word.
The earliest occurrences of the expression serial liar that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
—Note: The texts containing the first two occurrences of this expression clearly indicate that it was coined after, and in reference to, the expressions serial killer and serial murderer, which designate a person who carries out a series of murders:
1-: From the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York, USA) of Monday 15th April 1985 [page 1A, column 4]:
Is he serial killer or just serial liar?
Drifter’s confessions closed 210 cases
By Hugh Aynesworth and Jim Henderson
LA Times-Washington Post News Service
DALLAS—By his public admissions, he is the most prolific serial murderer in U.S. history—admissions taken seriously by authorities in 26 states. But Henry Lee Lucas may instead be the perpetrator of the largest hoax in law enforcement annals.
In the two years since he was arrested in Texas for the murder of an elderly woman, the 48-year-old drifter says he has confessed to 600 killings in the United States and five foreign countries. Based on those confessions, law enforcement agencies in New York and 25 other states have closed the books on more than 210 murders.
But an intensive investigation by the Dallas Times Herald suggests that Lucas could have been responsible for perhaps no more than three slayings.
2-: From Nation in Brief, published in the Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California, USA) of Sunday 18th August 1991 [page 10, column 1]:
MISSISSIPPI
May be serial liar
GULFPORT—A lawyer yesterday accused Donald Leroy Evans of spinning a web of lies as authorities continued investigating his claims he killed 60 people during a decade of wandering.
Jim Rose, who represents the woman charged with giving Evans her 10-year-old daughter for sex, said Evans is not remorseful about killing the girl and is lying about other murders.
“[…] I don’t think he’s killed anybody else. Not that many.”
3-: From Va.’s 1st congresswoman ‘a fighter’, by Bonnie V. Winston, published in the Roanoke Times & World-News (Roanoke, Virginia, USA) of Monday 9th November 1992 [page A6, column 1]—the following is about the electoral fight between Leslie Byrne and Caldwell Butler, Jr., to represent Virginia’s newly created 11th District in the U.S. Congress:
Byrne, who favors legal abortion, is pro-consumer and an advocate of health care reform, was dubbed “Lying Leslie, the Serial Liar” by Butler supporters. They, and Butler himself, accused her of padding her resume and exaggerating a national award for her political leadership.
4-: From a letter to the Editor, by one Michael Levine, published in the Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA) of Friday 27th May 1994 [page 22A, column 4]—Bill Clinton (born 1946) was the 42nd President of the USA from 1993 to 2001:
Why don’t we stop expending all of our national energy in an endless debate over our president’s character? Anyone who’s been paying attention for the last two years can tell you that we’ve elected a serial liar with little or no conscience.
Ask yourself this question: Would you want a beloved female member of your family to end up with a man like Bill Clinton?
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