In my opinion, an omission would only constitute a lie if, and only if, the information omitted cannot be safely ignored as irrelevant. Because otherwise the an

In my opinion, an omission would only constitute a lie if, and only if, the information omitted cannot be safely ignored as irrelevant. Because otherwise the answerer would be omitting information which he personally considers important. Whenever a person is asked a question, they have at least some idea of both what's relevant to the inquirer (i.e. what's being asked, implicitly or not) as well as what they personally consider relevant (i.e. all that information which might relate to the question). And some thoughts can be safely omitted if they're uninformative. For instance, it might occur to me when asked about the watch that it looks shitty and tacky. But that thought might occur to me less like an actual opinion and more like an intrusive thought. So it can be safely ignored as completely uninformative to the inquirer, because whatever value it could have to the inquirer later on would be only due to a "broken clock" effect. Because I'd be talking out of my ass. Now, if there's a loophole, it's only as big as people make it out to be. Because the real difference between honest and dishonest people would remain. And that is, that the former are willing to express their own opinions when asked to do so, whereas the latter would attempt to manipulate their answers, either by omitting information they personally consider relevant or, as you suggest, by attempting to misdirect the inquirer by adding information which they know is irrelevant, but which doesn't appear as such the inquirer.