Litotes (li-to’-tees): Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite. The Ad Herennium author suggests litotes as a means of expressing modesty (downplaying one’s accomplishments) in order to gain the audience’s favor (establishing ethos).
I never thought when I invented flavored Magic Marker ink that anything would come of it, and nothing did except for the whole world filled with people with colored teeth making the smile into a whole new thing. That’s not much when you think about it. The whole world isn’t that big a place—Jupiter is bigger.
My prowess as an inventor leaves a lot to be desired. What about the “Everything Vaccine” that immunizes people against every disease, even cancer? How great can it be? It only took me two days to perfect, and so far, it’s only saved 500 million lives. So what. That’s not even the world’s population, for God’s sake.
Talking about God’s sake, it reminds me of the Cathedral I built that can hold the entire population of Baltimore. So, what’s that worth? While the whole town’s at church, nobody’s shopping. If I had thought of that I would’ve put a dozen or so small stores in the Church—definitely including a Dollar General. But, I didn’t have the foresight. I was too focused on building the world’s largest church. I apologize.
At least it’s not as big a blunder as the free university. So many people have enrolled that we have to build additions to all the university’s buildings and expand the surrounding grounds. Now, we’re stuck with a baseball stadium bigger than Yankee Stadium—it’s ludicrous. The university is exploring an offer of a major league team. Can you believe it? What a joke! Major league team?
Now, I’m working on a longevity drug. It is made of a blend of crushed Christmas tree ornaments, Spam, Nutella, and furniture polish. It seems like an unlikely blend to induce longevity, but with the government’s approval, we’ve been testing it at nursing homes. The typical 78 year-old on the edge of death, bounces back to 40 after one week taking the drug. We ere hoping for 25, so we’re a little disappointed. But you can’t win ‘em all. I’ll probably be awarded another Nobel Prize anyway. That’s life.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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