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Understatement is an expression of lesser strength than what the speaker or writer actually means or than what is normally expected. It is the opposite of embellishment or exaggeration, and is used for emphasis, irony, hedging, or humor. A particular form of understatement using negative syntax is called litotes.
English understatement. Understatement is an aspect of traditional English culture. [1] It has been exploited to humorous effect, but it is also characterised as part of the English cultural attitude to life.
Litotes. In rhetoric, litotes (/ laɪˈtoʊtiːz, ˈlaɪtətiːz /, US: / ˈlɪtətiːz /), [1] also known classically as antenantiosis or moderatour, is a figure of speech and form of irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect ...
The easiest stylistic device to identify is a simile, signaled by the use of the words "like" or "as". A simile is a comparison used to attract the reader's attention and describe something in descriptive terms. Example: "From up here on the fourteenth floor, my brother Charley looks like an insect scurrying among other insects."
Ethos – a rhetorical appeal to an audience based on the speaker/writer's credibility. Ethopoeia – the act of putting oneself into the character of another to convey that person's feelings and thoughts more vividly. Eulogy – a speech or writing in praise of a person, especially one who recently died or retired.
t. e. Old English literature refers to poetry (alliterative verse) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. [1] The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as ...
A literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech. [1] Keith and Lundburg describe a trope as "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". [2] The word trope has also undergone a semantic change and now also describes commonly ...
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). [1][2] In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter.