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In rhetoric, litotes (/ l aɪ ˈ t oʊ t iː z, ˈ l aɪ t ə t iː z /, US: / ˈ l ɪ t ə t iː z /), [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 ...
The French actress Sarah Bernhardt was considered insufficiently understated in English terms. Photograph by Félix Nadar, c. 1864. This attitude of understatement was exemplified by a comment upon Sarah Bernhardt's violent depiction of Cleopatra in the 1891 play of that title: "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!"
This passage is just confused. "Terrible" is a false-friend in French; it means "wonderful" or something of the sort. So "ce n'est pas terrible" is just a straightforward example of litotes, not the odd French usage the author seemed to think. --Christopher M 22:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC) Um, no.
Understatement often leads to litotes, rhetorical constructs in which understatement is used to emphasize a point. It is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures. For example, in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, 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."
Analogy – the use of a similar or parallel case or example to reason or argue a point. Anaphora – a succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words. Anastrophe – inversion of the natural word order. Anecdote – a brief narrative describing an interesting or amusing event.
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For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
From ancient history to the modern day, the clitoris has been discredited, dismissed and deleted -- and women's pleasure has often been left out of the conversation entirely. Now, an underground art movement led by artist Sophia Wallace is emerging across the globe to challenge the lies, question the myths and rewrite the rules around sex and the female body.