[Ads-l] understate = 'overstate'

[Laurence Horn]

Not so much “understate” = ‘overstate’ but arguably a blend along the lines of “cannot understate” = 'should not understate' + 'cannot overstate’.  Language Log has many blog entries devoted to both “undernegation” and “overnegation” including the notorious “No head injury is too trivial to ignore”. Many of the problematic negatives involve modal “can(not)”, and this is part of that family.  (“Could care less” is an undernegative cousin.)

LH 

> On Oct 6, 2023, at 3:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-mueller-prosecutor-warns-trump-131802945.html
> 
> "'Given the current schedule, we cannot understate the prejudice to
> President Trump arising from his lack of access to these critical materials
> months after they should have been produced," Trump attorneys Chris Kise
> and Todd Blanche wrote in the filing."
> 
> 
> JL
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org