Questions tagged [litotes]
The litotes tag has no usage guidance.
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What's the meaning of "hardly seem more implausible"?
In the following text, what does "the latter scenario could hardly seem more implausible" mean?
The result suggests one of two scenarios. One is that arctic foxes
gave rise to swift foxes, ...
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What is it called when "I don't like X" is used to mean "I positively *dislike* X", or "We do not recommend Xing" is used for "We *discourage* Xing"?
I’m wondering if there’s a term that linguists or rhetoricians use for this (semantic?) phenomenon.
In both cases, it seems as though ‘not’ no longer expresses the mere absence or negation of what it ...
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What are "double negatives" in English, and are they ever correct?
This is a followup to a comment exchange and particularly this comment over on ELL.
One user contends that a double negative is always wrong in standard English. This user also maintains that:
First, ...
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"It cannot be too firmly realised"?
I am trying to translate a book into Portuguese and came across this sentence whose meaning I cannot really grasp. Maybe someone could help me understand the meaning of:
It cannot be too firmly ...
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"It has not been unchanged." Is that a valid sentence? [duplicate]
Do I have to understand the sentence:
It has not been unchanged
.. as if the related subject actually changed, or whether there has been no change at all? In short, is this a double negative?
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discount all improbabilities = make probable? [closed]
Mr. Graham Hancock in his book "The Mars Mystery" quotes Hoyle, "Origin of Universe"
I saw that the answer to this question lies in what is now called the anthropic principle, which says that the ...
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Does litotes need to be negative?
For example, are the following examples of litotes:
Ariel (The Tempest): ‘The powers, delaying, not forgetting’
(Stresses a past injustice being remembered)
Adam (Paradise Lost): ‘nothing ...
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Are both "You can do no worse than" and "You can do worse than" accepted?
I came across "You can do no worse than" in the following article:
You can do no worse than follow the regular updates that ESA astronaut
Luca Parmitano is posting in his blog as he conducts his ...
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Are litotes more common in Australian English?
Are litotes more common in Australian English, especially colloquial speech, compared to other dialects of English such as American English?
I could find on ELU a comment stating that this is the ...
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It's not ___, but it's not not ___ either
Are there general modifiers for adjectives that indicate a gray area between the adjective and its negative?
E.g., "Plywood isn't wooden, but it isn't not-wooden either. Therefore, plywood is ____ly ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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"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 means "...
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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 good.]...
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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?
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Are "not uncommon" and similar phrases double negatives? Should their use be avoided?
When I think of double negatives I think of phrases that grate on the ears, like:
I'm not going to do no homework.
I'm never going to not go visit Graceland.
There are some phrases that appear to ...
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