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Understatement 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 part ...
is an aspect of traditional
English culture The culture of England is defined by the Culture, cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture ...
. It has been exploited to humorous effect, but it is also characterised as part of the English cultural attitude to life.


In medieval times

Old English texts relied extensively upon
wordplay Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, pho ...
such as understatement and
double negative A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, d ...
s; understatement (
litotes In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, o ...
) is used at least 94 times in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ''
Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...
'', a "high frequency". One author has described this "stylistic mannerism" to be inherited from "an earlier, possibly common-Germanic, poetic tradition"; he notes that understatement is also found in mediaeval German poetry and
Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
poetry. Such understatement may have the effect of mocking irony, humour,
emphasis Emphasis or emphatic may refer to: Communication * Emphasis (telecommunications), intentional alteration of the amplitude-vs.-frequency characteristics of the signal meant to reduce adverse effects of noise * Cultural emphasis, alleged tendency ...
, and the tempering of an (otherwise rather sharp) expression.


Culture

This attitude of understatement was exemplified by a comment upon Sarah Bernhardt's violent depiction of
Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler. ...
in the 1891 play of that title: "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear
Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
!" ''
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations ''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'', first published by the Oxford University Press in 1941, is an 1,100-page book listing short quotations that are common in English language and culture. The 8th edition was published for print and online ...
'' judges this critique to be apocryphal. Understatement may be used to convey calmness and self-control to others in a moment of crisis. In 1916 during the opening stages of the
Battle of Jutland The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vic ...
,
Admiral Beatty Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty (17 January 1871 – 12 March 1936) was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Mahdist War and then the response to the Boxer Rebellion, he commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadr ...
witnessed the explosion of two of his largest
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of at ...
s within half an hour of each other; he is said to have remarked to his subordinate that "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today". Better documented is the cross-cultural miscommunication between British and American military personnel in the midst of the
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...
. In April 1951, 650 British fighting mensoldiers and officers from the 1st Battalion, the
Gloucestershire Regiment The Gloucestershire Regiment, commonly referred to as the Glosters, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 until 1994. It traced its origins to Colonel Gibson's Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1694 and later became the ...
were deployed on the most important crossing on the
Imjin River The Imjin River ( in South Korea) or Rimjin River ( in North Korea) is the 7th largest river in Korea. It flows from north to south, crossing the Demilitarized Zone and joining the Han River downstream of Seoul, near the Yellow Sea. The river i ...
to block the traditional invasion route to Seoul. The Chinese had sent an entire
division Division or divider may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication *Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military * Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
10,000 menagainst the isolated Glosters in a major offensive to take the whole Korean peninsula, and the small force was gradually surrounded and overwhelmed. After two days' fighting, an American, Major General Robert H. Soule, asked the British brigadier, Thomas Brodie: "How are the Glosters doing?" The brigadier, with English understatement, replied: "A bit sticky, things are pretty sticky down there." To American ears, this did not sound desperate, and so he ordered them to stand fast. The surviving Glosters were rescued by a column of tanks; they escaped under fire, sitting on the decks of the tanks. In November 1963, as
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...
were becoming a cultural phenomenon in Britain but were still unknown to the Americans, a photo appeared in the British press showing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison playing
Rickenbacker Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. The company is credited as the first known maker of electric guitars – a steel guitar in 1932 – and today produces a rang ...
guitars. Rickenbacker's London distributor, his "urgency cloaked in British understatement," wrote to the company's California headquarters, "This shows both the Rickenbacker's (sic) used by the group I mentioned to you. We'll need samples of both these models, please." During the
Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...
-to-
Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...
leg of
British Airways Flight 9 British Airways Flight 009, sometimes referred to by its callsign Speedbird 9 or as the Jakarta incident, was a scheduled British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with stops in Bombay, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and Melbourne. On 24 ...
on 24 June 1982,
volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to refer ...
caused all four engines of the
Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, ...
aircraft to fail. Although pressed for time as the aircraft rapidly lost altitude, Captain Eric Moody still managed to make an announcement to the passengers: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."


Humour

The
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for exampl ...
of English
understatement 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 part ...
has been exploited in
humour Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...
, for example in ''
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', also known simply as ''The Meaning of Life'', is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. ''The Meaning of Life'' was the last f ...
''. In one scene, a suburban dinner party is invaded by Death, who wears a long black cloak and carries a scythe. "Well," says one party guest, "that's cast rather a gloom over the evening, hasn't it?" In another scene, an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit."


References

{{Reflist English culture Rhetorical techniques