Main content
Under- and overstatement
This is, bar none, the greatest video Khan Academy has ever made, although I may be slightly overstating that. Learn how to master this style by following along.
Want to join the conversation?
- What is the PRECISE difference between hyperbole and overstatement? In terms of the minuscular differences they concur.(23 votes)
- Branding new words is a 'yuge' rhetorical device used 'bigly' by master politicians and advertisers.(8 votes)
- can i make an overstatement and an understatement in the same sentence(13 votes)
- yes
like: i got 1/20 in exam unacceptable i think it is the end of the world! while i saw a giant monster destroying the my house.
may be some thing like this :)(6 votes)
- I did so bad on my soccer game, my coach is gonna kick me off the team, and then I won't be able to get a job, and so my dog won't be fed, and so he wont be around, and that means I'll be lonely, which means I'll be sad, which means I wont hear the Walmart delivery, which means the popsicles will have thawed, which means I wasted money, which eventually leads to bankruptcy, which means I'll have to beg for money, which means I have to sit outside walmart, which means I'll never hear my manager telling me I won te lottery, which means that my manager will steal the ticket and quit the job, which means that I'll have to hire a new manager with higher pay, which means I'll have to sell my $1B dollar mansion in order to pay him, which means he will have nothing to manage and quit, which leads to me investing all my money into buying a rare breed of panda to keep as a pet, which means that I have an illegal animal as a pet, which leads to around 20 years of jail time, which means I won't be able to see my family, which means I won't get birthday presents, and if I dont get birthday presents, I'll be angry. And if I get angry, I'll break out of jail, which means I'll be a wanted criminal for the rest of my poor life, which means I'll donate all my money to charity, which means the police will stop hunting me down, which is great but the problem is I now have no money, which leads to no food, which eventually leads to......................Robbing a bank! Therefore, never ever ever ever ever lose your soccer game. EVER. (Was this a good example of an Overstatement?)(17 votes)
- Is an understatement just like a sarcastic remark?(5 votes)
- Wonderful question! Somewhat, yes. But sarcasm isn't always considered good while understatement's use has been appreciated in literary works. An example of understatement will be:
"I have this little operation. It isn't very serious.
I have this tiny tumor on the brain."
-Salinger's Catcher in the Rye
I hope this helps!(16 votes)
- 0:46thats literally my life everyday(9 votes)
- Dang, you have it hard..(1 vote)
- She did do that horrible list of stuff! I was an eyewitness!(7 votes)
- And you didn't do anything to stop it?! (Only kidding)(2 votes)
- Where did Rosey come from?(4 votes)
- You can learn about Rosie at the bottom of the page. Click on Our team, then choose "content specialists". She is one of the first people you'll find in the section on humanities.(5 votes)
- Well, what is the happy medium?(5 votes)
- "The happy medium" is the position between two poles that is comfortable. The happy medium between "indifferent" and "like" is "dislike" (though it wouldn't be a very happy thing to be there.)(4 votes)
- I actually believed that Paige kidnapped David's dog (overstatement).
This video was not funny, and the jokes are meh (understatement).(5 votes)- It's not supposed to be(4 votes)
- Look in the description 😂(6 votes)
Video transcript
- [Rosie] Hello, grammarians, hello David. - [David] Hello, Rosie! - [Rosie] So today,
we're going to talk about understatement and overstatement. - [David] And I could not be more excited. This is like the coolest thing that's happened to me all week! - [Rosie] Oh my gosh. Really? (laughs) - [David] Uh, uh, uh, no. I mean, I'm excited. This is a really interesting topic, but I was deliberately overstating. - [Rosie] Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool, but that is, that does, that is a perfect example, David, of what overstatement is. So we're gonna look at a couple examples of what writers will do sometimes to, I would say, both
understatement and overstatement really help to drive a point home. We're gonna start with understatement. So David, you wanna read this sentence? - [David] Sure. "So you kidnapped my dog, "drove to New Orleans
without telling anyone, "and ate the last cookie
that I was saving? "Yeah, I'm like, vaguely unhappy." (Rosie laughs softly) - [Rosie] This is a horrible
thing that just happened. So when you said, "Yeah,
I'm like vaguely unhappy," after this huge list of horrible things that this supposed friend has done, you know, it's clear that, that you're more than just
a little, vaguely unhappy. - [David] To be clear, grammarians, Rosie did not do any of these things. (Rosie laughs softly)
- [Rosie] Thank you, David. - [David] This sentence
is a work of fiction. - [Rosie] Thank you for
letting me off the hook there. - [David] You're welcome. So what we're trying to
express in this sentence is that this is something that should make the speaker or the writer quite unhappy. But what we're doing here is deliberately understating the case to further drive home the point that this is actually quite serious. - [Rosie] Exactly. - [David] So, ironically,
while the writer is using minimizing language, saying,
"I am vaguely unhappy," or, "like vaguely unhappy," which serves to further
qualify that statement, the fact that they're saying that after such a litany of sins, like, the cookie even, that's just ugh! Really serve to drive
home the opposite effect. So this is a textbook
example of understatement. - [Rosie] All right, so we've seen an example of understatement. Let's take a look at what an
overstatement might look like. - [David] "My life is over. "I got a D on the midterm. "I am dead; I am literally a skeleton." - [Rosie] Hooo, wow. (laughs) So this is a great, a great example of overstatement. - [David] So we know
this isn't true, right? Made a D on your midterm, not great. But is it truly and actually
the end of someone's life? No, and this author,
this writer knows that, knows what they are saying, because skeletons can't write. - [Rosie] Exactly. You might have also heard of hyperbole, which is what this is. It's just like, way exaggeration. But it serves to drive
home this person's point that they feel really bad that they got a D on this midterm, and this is a very effective way of conveying to us how upset they are, even though they're not
literally a skeleton, and they don't think they're
literally a skeleton. - [David] I think the
emotional impact of this is much more effective than it would be if I just said, "I am very upset, "because I got a D on my midterm." Like, I think this is more expressive. And certainly it's not true, but I think there's an
interesting way to play with over and understatement in order to get feelings across. I think, I think there's
like, a little bit of a taboo in American English-speaking culture to too literally say the
state of your emotions, and so we've discovered
these cultural idioms, through which we transmit emotion. So like, compare the
following two examples, delivered by Rosie. - [Rosie] 'Kay. "I'm very angry." Or, "Yeah, you could
say I'm a little upset." - [David] Now Rosie is
using understatement that I think, and I feel that the, the statement that uses understatement actually conveys more anger, because it's more socially
acceptable in the United States to somewhat publicly
repress your emotions. - [Rosie] Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could hear somebody say, "Yeah, I think I'm
pretty upset about that." And they're kinda laughing,
but they're upset. - [David] You can see
the glorious subtlety of these language techniques. And I understand, this can
make English a minefield for people trying to learn the language, because the subtext of what you're saying, with overstatement and understatement, is more important than the text itself. - [Rosie] Exactly. - [David] It's very difficult to learn to interpret those cues. There are plenty of native speakers who have trouble with it. - [Rosie] It's true. And it's just something that you can keep an eye out
for when you're reading and also when you're talking to people. It may start to, you may
start to spot them more, as you listen. - [David] And I suspect that,
if you listen and you study, I have this sneaking minute suspicion that you can learn anything. David, out. - [Rosie] Rosie, out. - [David] That was awesome. - [Rosie] That was fun!