Forget Facts. Check the Candidates' Innuendo.

There’s one intellectual tool that can cut through much of the bunk likely to emerge from the 2016 presidential debates. It’s not the much-discussed notion of on-the-spot fact-checking. Facts can be checked the next day. What’s needed in real time is a linguistic skill -- the ability to flag innuendo, strategic gaps, subtle non sequiturs, and winks and nods, and, for those privileged to act as moderators, to ask follow-up questions that force the candidates to be explicit.

Linguistics professor Andrew Kehler is an expert in indirect communication, which people deploy for both honest and shady purposes. More specifically, he studies the differences between the literal meanings of statements and the way listeners interpret them. Such a gap exists in all languages, making complex discourse possible but also enabling speakers to mislead without literally lying. “We’re always taking more information away from utterances than what is said, and we don’t realize how we are manipulated this way,” said Kehler.