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I quite often make outlandish exaggerated statements to emphasise a point; for example, if I'm particularly frustrated with a programming problem I'm working on, I'll say something like

If it doesn't work this time, I'm going to set fire to everything forever.

I know that as defined, this is technically hyperbole (an extreme exaggeration used to make a point) but I don't think the term quite covers what I'm doing as I tend to add additional emphasis to make it ridiculously outlandish.

Does anyone know of a more specific term than hyperbole for this kind of statement modification? Or is it all just hyperbole no matter how much you exaggerate it?

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    How about "Developer Overkill" ? :P
    – BiscuitBoy
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 11:55
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    How about exaggerated hyperbole?
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 11:55
  • @AndrewLeach That's one of the ones I was thinking of, but I was just curious as to whether anyone had coined a specific term for hyperbolic hyperbole. That's possibly as good as I'm going to get. :)
    – John Clifford
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 11:58
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    @PapaPoule That is right up my alley, can you submit that as an answer?
    – John Clifford
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 12:51
  • "Ridiculous hyperbole" hits all the notes I'd need excepting, maybe, "absurd".
    – The Nate
    Commented Mar 14, 2016 at 17:51

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If the context permitted a cutesy phrase you could probably use “Hyperbole on steroids, which was used as a title of a piece in the blog “Speak With Authority” in 2012 where the current administration was accused of “gunning for hyperbole” by making some claims viewed as exaggerated, if not outlandish, by the article's author.

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