THE MAGIC ART
As Rhetorical Devices Go — This One Isn’t Half Bad
The art of understatement and the irony of writing with litotes
Litotes —
— the gift of turning a sinking ship into a minor inconvenience.
— the art of making a volcanic eruption sound like a burp.
— the humble whisperer, making a shark attack sound like a playful nibble.
Litotes is a dextrous literary device that uses understatement to emphasise a point or avoid a subject, it’s kinda the opposite of awesome hyperbole which uses exaggerated language to create an overstatement.
The irony is, litotes might use hyperbole to accentuate its understatement. It sounds complicated, and it can be tricky, but if you come with me, I’ll let you in on the secret.
Oh! The Irony
Imagine sunning yourself on a beach in Barbados. A waiter arrives with a cocktail. You take the cherry from the top and give it a chew. You turn to your friend and say, “Isn’t this just awful?” Your friend would laugh out loud at the unexpected departure from the truth.
If your friend was on the other end of the phone in Glasgow, he might look up at the rain and think, ‘Yeah, yer right. This…
