[BITList] Books and litotes

[s14engine]

great, hugh

will check the authors out.
these ebooks are usually $9 to $10 delivered.

thanks again

colin

PS this runs on a bit!

PPS - a wee while is phrased in the manner of a lesser statement which 
really has the opposite meaning. may be a "litote".
    The use of litotes appeals specifically to certain cultures including 
the northern Europeans and is popular in English, Russian and French.
    They are features of Old English poetry and of the Icelandic sagas and 
are a means of much stoical restraint.[3]

Simple forms of understatement [found online]:-

First person:      'It's just an old Yves St. Laurent shirt.'

Third person:    'The 6 metre floods are really just a practical form of 
rising damp.'

Situational:        'It's only 500km to the nearest water.'

Complimentary: 'You're looking well.'

Derogatory:      'That luminous tie obviously came from a Trappist 
monastery.'

Elaborate forms of understatement are usually compound, involving multiple 
metaphors in the context of the subject. The usage gives a progressive 
series of understatements.

Elaborate forms of understatement

Personal: 'I'm thinking of saving my wages and putting a down payment on a 
lentil, one day.'

Third person: The sales manager was without a doubt the most 
non-materialistic person I have ever met.

Situational: 'Historical analysis and speculation by experts over decades 
now suggests that World War Two may have been in some obscure way unpleasant 
and noisy for the actual participants.'

Understatement as a metaphor

In more advanced writing, understatement is used as a metaphor for concepts 
rather than physical facts.

In Herodotus, a Spartan king views the booty from a captured Persian camp, 
and says in effect: 'Did they come here to rob us of our poverty?' This is 
understatement in terms of the relative wealth of the Greeks and the 
Persians.

Unless grammatically incorrect, understatement is always used in a context 
in which the expression is intended to



--------------------------------------------------
From: "HUGH" <chakdara at btinternet.com>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 11:16 AM
To: "BitList" <bitlist at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com>
Subject: Re: [BITList] Books

> Colin,
>
> Books, fiction.  Everything John Steinbeck wrote, for a start, but
> definitely Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row and The Grapes of Wrath.  Lindsey
> Davis' series on M. Didius Falco, a "spy" in the employ of the Emperor,
> mostly employed on solving crimes - The Body in the Bathhouse, A Dying 
> Light
> in Cordoba, among others.  The series by Mary Renault on the ancient Greek
> period .... The King Must Die (I've lost my copy), The Bull From the Sea,
> etc.  Also her trilogy on Alexander the Great : Fire From Heaven, The
> Persian Boy and Funeral Games.
>
> These will keep you going for a wee while.  A comment on the previous
> sentence.  Why is it that in Scots usage, "a wee while" is longer than "a
> while" ?
>
> Hugh.
>
>
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