There’s a social norm in favor of “honesty”. And there are in fact social norms for honesty about e.g. who cut down the cherry tree. But not a social norm favoring saying what you think about someone else’s appearance.
That’s not dishonesty, it’s speaking in words which happen to have meanings other than their literal ones. If in a culture people who think X are generally expected to say “Y”, then I’d say that in that culture “Y” means X, regardless of etymology, and it’s not dishonest to say “Y” when you think X.
That’s not dishonesty, it’s speaking in words which happen to have meanings other than their literal ones. If in a culture people who think X are generally expected to say “Y”, then I’d say that in that culture “Y” means X, regardless of etymology, and it’s not dishonest to say “Y” when you think X.