The English Oracle

Are litotes more common in Australian English?

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Chapters
00:00 Are Litotes More Common In Australian English?
00:20 Accepted Answer Score 1
00:50 Thank you

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Tags
#australianenglish #litotes

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ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 1


They do seem more common here. They might be part of the 'laconic' ethos. I have the sense they are less popular with the young and the media, to whom everything is 'wow', 'amazing'. I doubt if there's any foolproof way to test your theory. I suppose you could do a google search for 'not bad','not exactly a xxx', etc and see if you can get the source country. There'd be a lot of subculture variations too.