Understatement is a form of speech or disclosure which contains an expression of lesser strength than what would be expected. It is the opposite of an embellishment. The rhetorical form of understatement is litotes in which understatement is used for emphasis and irony. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression. Understatement may also be called underexaggeration to denote lesser enthusiasm.
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'sThe 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." ;Other examples:
The well-known Victorian critique of Cleopatra's behaviour as exemplified in Sarah Bernhardt's performance in Antony and Cleopatra: "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen!".
In April 1951, 650 British fighting men - soldiers and officers from the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment - were deployed on the most important crossing on the Imjin River to block the traditional invasion route to Seoul. The Chinese had sent an entire division - 10,000 men - to smash the isolated Glosters aside in a major offensive to take the whole Korean peninsula, and the small force was gradually surrounded and overwhelmed. After two days' fighting, an American, Major General Robert H Soule, asked the British brigadier, Thomas Brodie: "How are the Glosters doing?" The brigadier, schooled in Britain and thus British humour, replied: "A bitsticky, things are pretty sticky down there." To American ears, this did not sound desperate, and so he ordered them to stand fast. Only 40 Glosters managed to escape.
During the Kuala-Lumpur-to-Perth leg of British Airways Flight 9 on 24 June 1982, volcanic ash caused all four engines of the Boeing 747 aircraft to fail. Although pressed for time as the aircraft rapidly lost altitude, Captain Eric Moody still managed to make an announcement to the passengers: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
