It is an exaggerated or extravagant statement, used to express strong feelings or produce a strong impression, and is not intended to be understood literally.

Hyperbole soars high, or creeps too low;

Exceeds the Truth, Things wonderful to show.

There are two kinds of hyperbole: trite and genuine.

Trite hyperbole is stale or stereotype. It has lost its quality as a stylistic device through frequent repetition and has become a unit of the language-as-a-system, reproduced in speech in its unaltered form:

E.g. I could see my mother going in Spaulding’s and asking the salesman a million dopey questions. (J. Salinger)

Quite naturally, the main sphere of use of hyperbole is colloquial speech, in which the form is hardly ever controlled and the emotion expressed directly, without any particular reserve.

He was scared to death

I’ve told you fifty times

I beg a thousand pardons

In colloquial speech, expressions of this kind are the natural outcome of uncontrolled emotions or just habit. In any case, the listener is seldom affected by a stale/ trite hyperbole: nether the listener, nor sometimes even the speaker notice the exaggerations; no one takes the words at their face value.

But it is the other way round in works of poetry or fiction, where exaggerations serve expressive purposes and achieve their aim: they are noticed and appreciated by the reader.

Genuine hyperbole is original and fresh.

“Marlowe? We’d like to see you here, in the office.”

“Right away””

“Or sooner.” (R. Chandler)

He was one of those guys that think they’re being pansy of they don’t break around 40 of your fingers when they shake hands with you. (J. Salinger)

It is evident that paradoxical, illogical hyperboles are employed for humoristic purposes.

Linguistic means of expressing exaggeration are varied.

Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as an exaggeration. It is intended to sharpen the reader’s ability to make a logical assessment of the utterance.

Functions and stylistic effects

• to express the intensity of strong feelings

• to show an overflow of emotions

• to intensify one of the features of an object

• to suggest the presence of the opposite quality

• to create a humorous effect

Meiosis is a figure logically and psychologically opposite of hyperbole. It is a deliberate understatement, the underestimating/diminishing of the features of the object in order to emphasise its insignificance. It is lessening, weakening, and reducing the real characteristics of the object of speech.

E.g. He was a skinny little guy with wrists as big as pencils. (J.Salinger)

Meiosis has no definite formal expression; various linguistic means serve to express it:

I was half-afraid you had forgotten me.

I kind of liked it.

I am not quite too late.

A humorous effect is observed when meiotic devices (words and phrases called “downtoners” – maybe, please, would you mind, etc.) co-occur with rough, offensive words in the same utterance:

It isn’t any of your business maybe.

Would you mind getting the hell out of my way?

It is widely known that understatement / meiosis is typical of the British manner of speech, in opposition to American English in which hyperbole seems to prevail.

You have amazed me = Really?

A lavish praise = Not so bad? Not at all so bad!

A type of understatement, a specific form of meiosis is litotes. It presents an affirmative statement in the form of negation.

It is realised with the help of the negative particle not before a word with the negative meaning.

E.g: Love overcomes no small things.

It is an ironical understatement, especially expressing the affirmative by the negative of its contrary: not small = great; no coward = a brave man. The face wasn’t a bad one; it had what they called charm. (J. Galsworthy)

Thus two negatives make a positive meaning. E.g. He is not uncultured (J. Aldridge)

The result is double negation, and from mathematics we know that two minuses make a plus. The result is indeed affirmative, but the meaning obtained is weakened. That is why litotes produces a meiotic effect.

E.g. Cramer and I regarded him not without pity. (R.Stout)

Litotes may be regarded as a transposition of the syntactical construction like the rhetorical questions. The stylistic effect is based on the interplay of negative and affirmative meanings.

Functions and stylistic effects

• to weaken positive characteristics of an object

• to express doubt/uncertainty as to the value or significance of the object described

• to create an ironic attitude to the phenomenon described

Synecdoche is the transfer of the meaning on the basis of association between a part and the whole, the singular and the plural.

E.g.: the peasant (all the peasants), the blue-coat (а policeman)

England beat Australia at cricket