Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The first known mention of litotes is in a letter from Cicero in 55 BC . Cicero uses the word to mean simplicity (or frugality) of life. The meaning and the function of the word changed from 'simple' to the idea of understatement that involves double negatives, a way to state things simply. Old Norse had several types of litotes. These points ...
Legend - Light verse - Limerick - Literary criticism - Literature - Litotes - Lyric. M
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Two of them also use emphasis to make the meaning clearer. The last example is a popular example of a double negative that resolves to a positive. This is because the verb 'to doubt' has no intensifier which effectively resolves a sentence to a positive. Had we added an adverb thus: I never had no doubt this sentence is false.
"The use of litotes is common in English, Russian, German, Dutch, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and French." This list makes litotes sound exclusive to these languages, or at least marks these languages as somehow more likely to use litotes. It's a very simple construction, most languages in the world probably use it in some form or another.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Literary fiction is a term that distinguishes certain fictional works that possess commonly held qualities to readers outside genre fiction. [citation needed] Literary fiction is any fiction that attempts to engage with one or more truths or questions, hence relevant to a broad scope of humanity as a form of expression.
Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing and discussing literary works. These terms are helpful for curricula or anthologies. [1]