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).
Jumping 300 feet into the ocean to save a drowning hamster was not that great an accomplishment. The weather was warm, the water was calm, and the hamster swam to me and perched on my head as I swam to shore and climbed back up the 300 foot cliff. I scolded the little boy who had thrown her off the cliff. I told him “Hamsters can’t fly son. You learned a lesson today.” The kid grabbed the hamster and ran away. To my dismay, two days later I found the hamster gasping for breath on the beach in front of my home. I shook her up and down like a bottle of ketchup. She squirted a small amount of seawater and regained consciousness. So, I have saved the little girl twice and I’m glad I could do it. I have adopted her and named her Hammy.
So, thank-you for the Appleton Person of the Year Award. I’m not sure I qualify, but I trust your judgment. I am going to use the prize money to hire a private investigator (PI). I will give him the task of finding the boy who threw Hammy off the cliff, failed to kill her, and then almost succeed at drowning her at a second try.
“Mel Windwood is my name and I’m here to find that rascal” the PI said with a grim look on his face. He was the owner of “Snoops.” He was recommended by Eloise Pompo who had just completed a successful divorce with Mr. Windwood as PI. So, we got started. We started with the pet shop. The proprietor told us there was a very creepy boy who had purchased 25 hamsters over the past two weeks. He had paid with his father’s credit card. His father was Rev. Skepter. We looked at each other and nodded. We were both atheists so we had no problem playing rough.
We found the boy in the rectory. Windwood tied his hands, blindfolded him, and threw him in the trunk of his Chevy Impala. We met at Ocean Cliff where the boy had tried to throw the hamster—little Hammy—to her death. I held Hammy up to his face. Hammy was growling. I said, “Hear that? That’s the hamster you tried to murder! She’s not a happy hamster.” The boy was visibly upset. Then, out of nowhere, he got his hands free, pulled off the blindfold, and pulled a switchblade knife out of his pocket. Windwood knocked the knife out of his hand and pushed him off the cliff. Windwood said “Well that’s that. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I was shocked. I yelled “Asshole!” over my shoulder as I jumped off the cliff to save the boy. I got to him just as he was about to drown. He started laughing uncontrollably and saying “You’re screwed Mr. Good Guy.”
And indeed I was. Attempted murder. Kidnapping. Tarnishing the Appleton person of the year award. But that’s not the worst of it. Rev. Skepter’s son, aka “the boy” became Ohio’s most notorious serial killer. He would place a drowned hamster on each victim’s face. He was caught drowning a batch of hamsters in the fountain in Appleton’s city park. He was arrested and the rest is history. He’s scheduled for a lethal injection in a couple of weeks.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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