If you’re looking for a clever way to straddle the glass-half-empty line, try using litotes, or understated slights turned positive. For example, the guy you met for a blind date was really not unattractive. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Litotes”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Emily from Powell, Wyoming.
Hi, Emily. Welcome to the program.
Hi. A few years ago, I received an email from Miriam Webster’s Word of the Day, and it was basically describing a word that meant a backhanded compliment.
And I quickly deleted the email because I was overwhelmed with my inbox and regretted it almost immediately because I kept hearing instances that kind of was what this word described.
And I wondered what the word was.
And so I was just wondering if maybe you’d know.
Do you remember at all what it sounded like or what it looked like or anything else about the word?
That’s the only thing I could remember was basically how I thought it was pronounced, which to me looked like it could have pronounced latitudes, but I’m not sure.
And Googling that didn’t really help.
Oh, okay.
Well, I think we can help on this one.
And I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a backhanded compliment, but the word that you’re probably thinking about is lightetes.
It’s pronounced a bunch of different ways, but it’s spelled L-I-T-O-T-E-S.
Does that sound about right?
Yes, that sounds exactly like what it could be.
All right.
And lightetes, it’s not exactly a backhanded compliment, as I said.
It’s sort of a figure of speech that’s a kind of understatement.
Like if I said, oh, how was your trip to the park?
And you say, well, not bad.
Instead of saying, oh, it was good, you say, not bad.
Something like that.
Strikes me as particularly British.
Right, right.
Or if somebody’s trying to set you up with somebody on Match.com and they say, but, you know, he’s really not unattractive.
Right, right.
That’s an example of lightities.
And it’s pronounced lots of different ways.
I think you say it differently, don’t you, Grant?
There’s a litotes.
The dictionaries have several different pronunciations.
I don’t know what the split is.
It’s probably whether or not you have classical training like Martha does or not.
Yeah, yeah.
It comes from the Greek word that means plain.
P-L-A-N-E, P-L-A-I-N.
They didn’t have plains back in ancient Greece, Grant.
Well, that’s something horizontal.
Something flat and horizontal.
Yeah, P-L-A-I-N, you know, just sort of plain.
Not bad.
Not bad.
Okay, good.
So that’s the word.
So not bad, huh?
That’s great.
My mom’s been asking me about this for years, ever since I told her there was a word for it.
Oh, really?
Well, one little note about litides, which is really interesting, it’s one of the classical terms of rhetoric.
So when you encounter it on the Internet, and again, it’s L-I-T-O-T-E-S, you’re going to find all these other really interesting words around it, where people are explaining the classical terms of rhetoric and all these different modes that we use when we speak to suggest meaning without actually explicitly saying meaning.
So it keeps good company, that word.
That’s very interesting.
Thank you.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
Thanks for calling, Emily.
Thank you.
All right.
Bye-bye.
I appreciate your show.
Thank you.
Thanks, Emily.
Bye-bye.
