海角大神

The story of the American Olympian who either was or wasn鈥檛 robbed at gunpoint in Rio had many twists and turns. But one of the constants of his mea culpas afterward was his insistence that he had 鈥渙verexaggerated鈥� in his initial account of what happened.聽

That word seemed to make it into the headline of every account of this head-scratching episode.聽

All this has me thinking about our vocabulary for stretching the truth. So how much 鈥渙verexaggeration鈥� would have been enough?聽

Exaggerate, according to the Online Ety颅mology Dictionary, came into English in the 1530s from a Latin word meaning 鈥渢o pile up鈥� or 鈥渢o accumulate.鈥� That鈥檚 what it meant in English, too, at first.聽

One of the Oxford English Dictionary鈥檚 examples of this reads (with spelling modernized), 鈥淲ith their flipping and flapping up and down in the dirt they exaggerate a mountain of mire.鈥� But by the 1560s, exaggerate meant 鈥渢o overstate.鈥澛�

Had our Olympian apologized for 鈥渙verhyping鈥� his exploits in Rio, he would have drawn on another word from the 鈥淒o we really need this word?鈥� category.

Overhype seems to get a free pass in dictionaries. Several respectable ones include it, defining it as 鈥淭o promote or publicize to excess,鈥� or some such, with no suggestion that thoughtful writers might avoid it. Harrumph. Where are the American Heritage usage experts when you need them?聽

My gripe against overhype is that it鈥檚 duplicative. The etymology dictionary describes hype, the noun, as 鈥減robably in part a back-formation of hyperbole.鈥� Hyperbole comes from Greek words suggesting something thrown 鈥渙ver鈥� (or beyond). Thus overhype says the same thing twice, once in English and then again in Greek.

Hyperbole, however, is a perfectly respectable figure of speech. It consists, as Oxford notes, of an 鈥渆xaggerated or extravagant statement, used to express strong feeling or produce a strong impression, and not intended to be understood literally.鈥� Note that last bit: 鈥渘ot intended to be understood literally.鈥� A key point, no?聽

Hyperbole has a counterpart: litotes (LYE-toh-teez). It鈥檚 like understatement but a little subtler. As Oxford defines it, it鈥檚 a 鈥渇igure of speech, in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary; an instance of this.鈥澛�

Oxford cites two biblical examples. One is from the account of the shipwreck that landed the apostle Paul and companions on Malta, after many days 鈥渨hen no small tempest lay on us.鈥� Small tempest indeed 鈥� it was clearly a truly harrowing storm.

The second is the apostle鈥檚 reference to himself as 鈥渁 Jew of Tarsus,... a citizen of no mean city.鈥� Mean once meant 鈥渕iddling,鈥� and, by the time of the King James Bible, 鈥渕erely mediocre.鈥� But to modern ears, Paul seems to suggest, to say without saying, that, au contraire, Tarsus was one of the meanest, baddest cities on the Mediterranean.

You can definitely have too much overexaggeration. But a little litotes can go a long way.