“Now, I’m sure there are many questions,” Mrs. Casnoff continued in what had to be the understatement of the year.
A NON-TEACHER'S OPINION
(1) My dictionary tells me that an "understatement" is
not emphasizing something on
purpose.
(2) In other words, there are probably a
million questions that the students have,
so Mrs. Casnoff's comment is an understatement of the true situation.
(a) Let's say that Mrs. Casnoff says, "We have decided to sell the school."
Do you think that the students and parents would have a lot of questions?
Of course, they would. So when Mrs. Casnoff says, "I'm sure there are many
questions," that is really a huge
understatement. The students
not only have
many questions
but they are shocked and can't believe the news!
(3) Sometimes we use an understatement because we do not want to say something unkind.
Tom: I have a question about grammar.
Mona: Well, why don't you ask the Parser?
Tom: Well, he is very nice, but
I don't think that he understands grammar very well.
George: That's the understatement of the year. ( = Tom is too nice to say the Parser
is stupid and knows nothing about grammar.)
