---
title: Loose talk costs lives
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-talk-costs-lives-owi-1943/
description: 'A text-only horizontal sheet: ''Loose talk costs lives'' in large capitals beside a brace and a short message that the Axis counts on others repeating what'
section: Collection
---

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3. Loose talk costs lives

[![Loose talk costs lives, 1943 US poster: A text-only horizontal sheet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/loose-talk-costs-lives-owi-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/loose-talk-costs-lives-owi-1943.jpg)

# Loose talk costs lives

A text-only horizontal sheet: 'Loose talk costs lives' in large capitals beside a brace and a short message that the Axis counts on others repeating what you tell friends 'in confidence'. The technique is faint here; the headline links talk to deaths (fear-appeal) and the underlined words personalise the warning.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
LOOSE
TALK
COSTS
LIVES
War information
makes good conversation.
The Axis counts
on others repeating
what you tell friends
"in confidence."
Think before you talk!
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—537418
[imprint:] AN OFFICIAL WAR MESSAGE
DISTRIBUTED BY THE O.W.I.
[emphasis: 'others', 'you' and 'friends' are underlined]
```

[← Lives saved by plasma](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lives-saved-by-plasma-red-cross-1943/) [Lubbers Don't Live! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lubbers-dont-live-1943/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)