The litotes tag has no wiki summary.
2
votes
1answer
169 views
Litotes: Always for Emphasis? Used for Non-committal Hedging? Any Authoritative Source?
My question is about litotes. I’m wondering if it is always for emphasis, or whether it can be a type of non-committal statement or hedging. And, is there an authoritative source that can be cited ...
5
votes
3answers
252 views
Double negation and litotes
A friend of mine who's a native English speaker corrected me the other day. I said something like "it's not something no-one has done before". He told me about the rule that states that double ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views
Usage and example of the word “litotes”
I've come across the word litotes, which means a rhetorical understatement. However, I’m having trouble understanding how to use it in colloquial English. Could someone please give an example?
4
votes
6answers
506 views
Euphemism for “non-useful”
I was just about to tell someone how something "wouldn't really be much useful" if they leave it the way it is — which is like a much more polite version of useless, but I just couldn't find the word. ...
-1
votes
5answers
211 views
“Not once he would” vs. “not once would he”
Not being a native speaker and suffering semantic satiation from overthinking this, I'd like to ask this probably overly simple question.
Not once would he...
uses reversal for negation and ...
3
votes
4answers
259 views
Can you negate a positive without implying the opposite?
I often stumble over the fact that in English, apparently, we imply the reverse when we negate a positive. For example,
That wasn't very good. [⇒ That was bad.]
That wasn't bad. [⇒ That was ...
