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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“The importance of (whatever) cannot be understated”
I’m getting lazy here so I’ll just paste and link to a better description than I might have offered. I can see why this reversal of usage would be natural and in fact, used it myself until I was corrected some years ago.
The easiest way to consider the correct usage, which I initially had trouble with, is that you are saying that no matter how much emphasis you give to (whatever), you could not be exaggerating.(or OVERSTATING) Please see below.
Once again, apologies if my searches missed this and further apologies if you reckon I’m picking nits.
From:
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2006/ … chewa.html
“A pet peeve: People who write or say “cannot be understated” when they mean “cannot be overstated”. Yes, there are times when such folks actually mean to say what they say, but much more common is when someone says “understated” in this cliched context when they mean “overstated”. The upshot, of course, is that they are saying that something is really, really trivial, when they mean to say precisely the opposite.
Here is an example from a BusinessWeek article assessing Bill Gates’ legacy. I have a hunch that the author did not mean to imply that Microsoft’s and Gates’ impact were minimal:
For better or worse, the role that Microsoft and Bill Gates played in such a vast societal change cannot be understated.For more of this sort of thing just do a quick Google search. It’s legion. I’m particularly fond of one of the first hits in the search, one where someone says, “The dangers of meth cannot be understated.” Whoa, news to me!”
Last edited by rfwillis (2010-11-25 19:05:39)
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If this is common, I wonder if it not a kind of blend or malapropism where the sense of the phrase is, “the importance of X should not or must not be understated”, but the comparison has run away with itself to the absolute can not.
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David Bird wrote:
If this is common, I wonder if it not a kind of blend or malapropism where the sense of the phrase is, “the importance of X should not or must not be understated”, but the comparison has run away with itself to the absolute can not.
It most certainly is very common. I think you are being very kind if you allow that this sort of usage has actually been considered before utterance, or even that its evolution followed a logic. Perhaps I’m a little unfair.
“You have to take the good with the bad” is the same type of thing. It has been reversed and makes less sense. (Oh okay, I’ll take the “good” if you insist that I must.)In both these cases I find it far more common to hear the incorrect version. Maybe a little less so with the written versions.
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I think my tocayo (David B) has it right: The equation should/must not be understated = ‘is extremely important’ is very well established, and so is the general progression from weaker to stronger, of should/must/can . So it makes sense to combine the two (a kind of blending, really, but then practically all of grammar is) and both produce and understand cannot be understated as meaning ‘is absolutely important’.
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Of course blending with cannot be overstated (=‘is extremely if not absolutely important’) is almost certainly at work as well.
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Any modal modification of a negative (not just outright negation of it) is likely to produce a positive under at least some circumstances. (The Nawatl language I work with has some fascinating examples: what means “he isn’t going†in one town is likely to mean “isn’t he going?†or even “he is going, isn’t he?â€, all the way to “he’s surely going, never you doubt it†in the next. The most widespread word for “yes†is literally if-not .)
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And of course any time you start piling negations of modifications of negations upon each other, it is easy to lose track of where you are in the calculations.
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Similar and related phenomena:
his presence on the team can not be overstated as it was repeatedly brought to people’s attention that [he is uniquely qualified]
I’d be curious to know whether there has been any investigation into how chaplains — whose role in the military, especially during deployments, cannot be understated — would interact with gay soldiers.
I have done a most foolish, cruel and hurtful thing. I cannot bear to think of my actions without abhorrence.
Indeed my love, you cannot but desire your dear friend’s presence any less than I do my dear sister’s.
It is beyond anything. I cannot thank you too much, and cannot express to you my heartfelt gratitude […] I cannot be grateful enough.
I don’t think we can underemphasize the importance of …
The drag depends on the angle of incidence. I think you may be misunderestimating the angle of attack and its influence on the tail angle in the water. [GWB was not the first nor the only one to use this word]
Science Council funding was critical in that area. It allows us to move into the commercialization of the zeolite technology. I can’t overstate that enough.
You deserve to be evaluated fairly, but people make judgements on their perceptions of reality, not just on the facts. I cannot overemphasize that enough.
[in prayer:] The evidence is such that we could not help but mistake your presence in our lives.
I can’t help but think of Esther without thinking of that awful afternoon
You couldn’t help fail to notice what a model she was to her students.
And so forth. The limitations are endless.
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2010-11-25 23:56:43)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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I think this phrase is best understood by the use of its variation “is impossible to understate” which is correctly “is impossible to overstate”
“It is impossible to understate the importance of chemical reactions in the world we live in.”
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-chemical-reactions.htm
“It is impossible to understate the benefits of regularly testing aquarium water”
http://www.hagen.com/uk/aquatic/nutrafi … t_kits.cfm
“It’s impossible to understate the importance of Mitsubishi’s Australian-made 380 large sedan”
http://www.carpoint.com.au/reviews/2005 … -2005-3938
It is certainly possible to understate anything at all. It happens all the time and regularly results in adversity. The person here is using “understate” incorrectly. He/She means to say “overstate”.
The power is in the CAN NOT or the IMPOSSIBLE and it is this which has given the cliche its meaning and popularity. As the sentiments of this usage are exactly the same as the phrase we are discussing I contend that both usages are equally “incorrect” although of course they become acceptable as their use widen.
I’m sticking to my guns on this one. I find this type of language inelegant at best.
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Probably blending in impossible to overestimate as well.
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Hey, I agree: it’s a mistake, certainly not elegant (mistakes rarely are), and consequently quite funny. But the making of them seems to be a temptation common to man: I have caught myself in one a time or two.
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One that has been attributed to several different sources (including President Eisenhower) and, I was told by one who should know, was once used at the University of Texas in Austin as half of a comps exam for the PhD candidacy in linguistics, is the following:
You know, I couldn’t fail to disagree with you less!
Like Bilbo’s famous “I like less than half of you half as well as you deserveâ€, it is not easy to figure whether it works out positively or negatively. If you parse it “[I couldn’t fail] to [disagree with you less]†it is positive, but you can also chunk it “I couldn’t [fail to disagree with you] lessâ€, so it comes out negative. This one, of course, is likely to have been purposeful, and thus clever rather than erroneous. If it was an error, it is a pretty elegant one.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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“You know, I couldn’t fail to disagree with you less!”
That is really good! I didn’t know of it. I’ll think about it for an hour or two and then plan on using it.
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