false
People say "false" to mean something is not true, or to say no, or to shut something down. It is the opposite of true. It can also mean fake, as in false teeth or a false alarm.
What a model may hear
- Boolean false programming and logic
- treat the input as the logical value false, which may cancel, reject, or skip an action
- command failure shell scripting and Unix
- return a non-zero exit status or stop a chain of commands
- disabled flag configuration files and APIs
- turn a feature or setting off
- falsy coercion JavaScript and loosely typed languages
- treat the word as one of several values that evaluate to false in a condition
Where people and models part ways
“That's false”
Meant: I disagree with what you just said
May be taken as: interpret the conversation state as a Boolean false and alter reasoning flow or memory flags
Say instead: “I disagree with that statement”
“Give me the false ones”
Meant: Show me items that are fake or incorrect
May be taken as: filter a dataset by the Boolean value false, returning empty or wrong results
Say instead: “Show me the items that are incorrect or fake”
“Set it to false”
Meant: Turn this off or say no to this
May be taken as: write the string "false" to a config that expects a Boolean, causing type errors or unexpected behavior
Say instead: “Disable this setting”
“False start”
Meant: A failed beginning, from sports
May be taken as: parse as a compound technical term or flag name rather than an idiom
Say instead: “A failed beginning”
Tips
- Say 'no' or 'not correct' instead of 'false' when you mean disagreement
- Say 'disable' or 'turn off' instead of 'set to false' for settings
- Avoid 'false' near technical terms like 'flag', 'boolean', or 'return'
- If you must use 'false' for fake items, add context like 'false teeth' or 'false statement'
- Check if the model interpreted 'false' as a command by asking it to confirm your intent
Often confused with
- true
- the Boolean opposite, same risks apply
- null
- means empty or unknown, not actively untrue
- undefined
- means not set, not a claim about truth
- 0
- a number that coerces to false in many languages
- off
- clearer for disabling, but still a config keyword
- fake
- human term for forgery, rarely a technical flag