Hyperbole
|
to use exaggerated language to emphasize or heighten effects; from the Greek and Latin hyperbole, meaning 'exaggeration' and 'to throw over and beyond'
|
Litotes
|
to use understatement to emphasize; technically, expressing a thought by denying its opposite; from the Greek litotes, meaning 'plainness, simplicity'; also called meiosis
|
Examples
Hyperbole
We've been waiting hours for you!
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Woody Allen Honey, there's a spider in your bathroom the size of a Buick. Thomas Wolfe We walked along a road in Cumberland and stooped, because the sky hung so low. P.G. Wodehouse A big chap with a small moustache and the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces |
Litotes
He's no athlete, is he?
This is no minor matter. It's not exactly a walk in the park. Hawaii is not an unpleasant place to visit. Samuel Johnson To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment. P.G. Wodehouse Bertie: Shakespeare said some rather good things. Jeeves: I understand that he has given uniform satisfaction, sir. |
Purpose
Exaggeration & Extravagance
Hyperbole is everywhere because humans exaggerate enormously. We have a passion for 'wild extravagance' (Winston Churchill) and 'exaggeration and attenuation of actual facts' (Quintilian).
P.G. Wodehouse
(Bertie orders breakfast after missing dinner the night before)
(Bertie orders breakfast after missing dinner the night before)
I shall need about fifty fried eggs with perhaps the same number of pounds of bacon. Toast also - four loaves will probably be sufficient, but stand by to weigh in with more if necessary. And don't forget the coffee - say, sixteen pots.
We often use metaphors, similes and comparisons to exaggerate - see the car-sized spider above. Some overstatements are stock expressions or dead metaphors and thus lack force and freshness.
it took ages
a ton of money
as old as the hills
tell me everything
all the money in the world
a ton of money
as old as the hills
tell me everything
all the money in the world
Understatement & Irony
Litotes is 'understatement.' It requires the audience to understand a real situation that understatement negates. Six days after Japan suffered its second atomic bomb attack, in 1945, its Emperor included the following understatement in his radio address to the nation:
Emperor Hirohito
The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.
The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.
Understatement negates so it often features in irony. Both are sociable figures that draw people together in shared humour that praises or mocks something or someone, for example:
That was not an unpleasant morsel.
(One friend to others after gorging at a feast) |
P.G. Wodehouse
The mystery had exercised his mind not a little. |
Lovely summer we're having.
(Wimbledon tennis spectator to others while sitting through a customary summer downpour) |
Expansion & Contraction
Hyperbole and litotes figuratively expand and contract and may stir the emotions to comedy or tragedy. They often accompany other figures of expansion and contraction like euphemism and dysphemism and climax; and figures of play and mischief like irony and ridicule. A broadly similar figure that emphasizes or understates the intensity of something is auxesis.
Usage
Hyperbole and litotes are so common that we must use them artfully for them to be noticed. Freshness and vividness matter most.
Freshness & Vividness
Like simile and metaphor, hyperbole once produced a colourful vocabulary that has now faded to grey. Like simile and metaphor, hyperbole requires we first ask 'What image or emotion am I trying to create?' Then choose vivid and fresh artful hyperbole or litotes. Or consider using another figure because everyone uses hyperbole everywhere.
The writer below describes a common ailment with uncommon artistry. His letter combines hyperbole with extended metaphor to create an arresting and humorous image.
The writer below describes a common ailment with uncommon artistry. His letter combines hyperbole with extended metaphor to create an arresting and humorous image.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Your letter, dear Ned, was a godsend. Fancy what a fix I am in - I who never had a day's sickness since I was born. My left leg weighs three tons. It is embalmed in spices and smothered in layers of fine linen, like a mummy. I can't move. I haven't moved for five-thousand years. I'm of the time of Pharaoh.
Negatives & Double-Negatives
We can understate with negatives and double-negatives.
Milton
Love, not the lowest end of human life. (negative) |
Pink Floyd
We don't need no education. (double-negative) |
Litotes is not a problem, but using double-negatives may burden and confuse audiences because they have to mentally tag a negative and then invert it to extract the true meaning. Even single negatives can be confusing. P.G. Wodehouse parodies this difficulty in Leave it to PSmith.
Outside of comedy, making your audience work hard to understand you is a mortal sin in the religion of style. One writer on style so disliked double-negatives, he ridiculed their usage:
George Orwell
One can cure oneself of the 'not un-' formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.
Litotes may require double-negatives but clear communication does not. Avoid using unnecessary negatives and double-negatives unless for litotes and comedy.
This essay will argue that human nature is not good. ✗
→This essay will argue that human nature is bad. It is not that I think that his performance is without merit. ✗ →His performance had good points but... |
He did not greet us in an unfriendly manner but might not have been so abrupt. ✗
→He greeted us rather coolly and abruptly. |