The art of the understatement

There are cultures that love the overstatement. Without batting an eye an American speaker will tell you you're the best when they really mean you're good or I like you. In some parts of Spain (or so the stereotype goes) people have a reputation for exaggerating. Something similar can be said about certain parts of the world. The gospels offer a famous example of deliberate hyperbole: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. That particular verse doesn't set out to mean it is impossible, but rather it is extremely difficult. The expression is obviously a figure of speech, namely, not supposed to be taken at face value. I could go off on a bit of a tangent here and mention that hyperbole is not always appropriate. The way I see it, there are many situations in which people expect exact information and will not tolerate anything remotely resembling a figure of speech. Off the top of my head I can think of an oncologist telling a patient how long they have to live, the CEO of a company addressing stockholders in a general meeting and a teacher telling a student's parents about their child's abilities. In such scenarios anything other than the literal truth is tantamount to lying.

Nevertheless, in casual circumstances, competent speakers will engage in ridiculous exaggerations often to comic effect. The British culture, however, goes in the opposite direction. Most British speakers will shy away from the overstatement and, instead, go for the understatement. So, a bona fide expert will say I have some experience in that area and a soldier in the trenches of an ongoing battle will text his wife that things are not too bad. That tendency to fall short of the full truth also explains an essential part of British humor.

An advanced English speaker is expected to decode an over-the-top statement so that he or she can understand a Welsh castaway, for instance, when they say that the ship encountered some difficulty. Needless to say, you might want to choose your words carefully specially when you speak in a professional capacity. Exaggerations that work when you hang out with your friends may not be acceptable at a business meeting, neither in Wales nor in New Zealand.

Anyhow, whatever your views on this fascinating subject might be, I think you should be sensitive to cultural differences if you don't want to misinterpret simple sentences. The clip below recounts the story of an aviation incident in which a British pilot  made epic use of  the understatement. Enjoy.

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N.B. If you're interested in this aspecto of British humor you can also watch this other short in which the late Ken Robinson makes glorious use of an understatement ("that was quite an oversight, isn't it?") and sarcasm ("we all know what great heights the glee club went on to").