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English people’s tendency to understate things is well known, but English speakers often use exaggeration in everyday speech as well. In this post we’re going to look at standard ways of saying things and compare their exaggerated and understated forms.

tendency to understate - 控えめに言う傾向
exaggeration - 大げさ
standard - 普通・人並み // compare - 比べる・比較する

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• STANDARD : “I’m hungry”
• EXAGGERATION : “I’m starving” / “I could eat a horse”
• UNDERSTATEMENT : “I’m a little peckish”

The literal meaning of starve is 「餓死する」. Noone, no matter how hungry, could eat a whole horse. ‘Peckish’ is probably related to the verb ‘peck’ (つつく・ついばむ), so refers to the appetite of a bird.

literal - 逐語的な
no matter how hungry - どれだけおなかがすいていても
appetite - 食欲

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• STANDARD : “I’m thirsty”
• EXAGGERATION : “I’m dying for a drink”
• UNDERSTATEMENT : “My throat’s a bit dry”

‘Dying for’ can be used to say you really really want something - for example, “I’m dying for a holiday”. The infinitive is ‘die’.

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• STANDARD : “He got angry”
• EXAGGERATION : “He hit the roof”
• UNDERSTATEMENT : “He was a bit upset”

For ‘hit the roof’ you have to imagine someone’s anger erupting up out of them - if you think about it you can’t go any further than the roof, can you? ‘Upset’ is a word we use to cover a range of emotions - particularly anger, disappointment and sadness.

anger - 怒り // erupt - 噴火・噴出する
a range of - 様々な

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• STANDARD : “I dislike him”
• EXAGGERATION : “I can’t stand (the sight of) him”
• UNDERSTATEMENT : “I’m not too keen on him”

“Can’t stand” is a very strong way of expressing dislike. People sometimes give “I can’t stand the sight of blood” as a reason for not liking horror movies. “Not too keen on” is a classic understatement.

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• STANDARD : “It’s raining” / “The weather is bad”
• EXAGGERATION : “Vile weather isn’t it”
• UNDERSTATEMENT : “A bit wet today isn’t it”

“Vile” is a fairly un-common word meaning 「ひどく悪い」, with quite strong nuances of ‘hate’.

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I suppose that using exaggeration and understatement is a kind of word-play that English people enjoy. One can imagine a conversation like :

• A : I’m starving. I could eat a horse.
• B : Yes, I’m a little peckish, too. Shall we order the steak?

Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ are explaining that they are hungry - perhaps ‘A’ more than ‘B’… Though the language is deliberately vague. I am sure you will agree that this is a more interesting conversation than :

deliberately - わざとに・故意に
vague - あいまい・はっきりしてない

• I’m very hungry.
• Me too. Shall we order the steak?

I’ll give you some more of these exaggerations and understatements in my next post.