引用前面的要點
1.I’d like to refer back to my earlier discussion of… 我想回頭引用我們先前討論的…
2.To go back to the idea of… 現在再回到…的構想上
2.To go back to the idea of… 現在再回到…的構想上
五、強調與加強語氣
強調訊息
1.I cannot overstate the importance of this fact. 我必須特別強調此項事實的重要性
2.This is our fundamental problem. 這是我們最根本的問題
3.This is the main point I want to make today: … 這是我今天想要提出的主要重點…
4.If you take nothing else from this speech with you, take this:…如果這場演說讓你一無所獲的話，那起碼還可以得到這個：…
5.Our focus must be… 我們的焦點必須放在…
2.This is our fundamental problem. 這是我們最根本的問題
3.This is the main point I want to make today: … 這是我今天想要提出的主要重點…
4.If you take nothing else from this speech with you, take this:…如果這場演說讓你一無所獲的話，那起碼還可以得到這個：…
5.Our focus must be… 我們的焦點必須放在…
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Language usage weblog
https://languagetips.wordpress.com/category/overstateunderstate/
Tip 2: Understated or overstated
A reader writes:
“Understated/overstated”
As in, “the importance of voting to a democratic society cannot be understated.” WRONG!
As written, this means, I think, that no matter how small the importance of voting is, no words could possibly make it seem any smaller. The writer should have used “overstated” here, meaning that all the emphatic expressions imaginable about the importance of voting would not be going too far, given how important voting is. Or am I wrong?
As written, this means, I think, that no matter how small the importance of voting is, no words could possibly make it seem any smaller. The writer should have used “overstated” here, meaning that all the emphatic expressions imaginable about the importance of voting would not be going too far, given how important voting is. Or am I wrong?
I think the reader is right. I think the writer is trying to say that voting is so important that we can’t say enough about it. But the reader confused ‘understated’ with ‘overstated,’ which is the word he (I’m just assuming the mistake was made by a he) wanted.
‘Understate’ means to represent something as less than it actually is. ‘Overstate’ is just the opposite, and it means to represent something as greater than it is, to exaggerate. The writer really wants to say that he can’t say enough about the importance of voting.
##" I cannot overstate the important of voting to a democratic society"##
##" I cannot overstate the important of voting to a democratic society"##
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Tip3: underestimate/overestimate
This is actually a fairly common mistake. And understate/overstate is not alone. Underestimate is often misused when overestimate is the intended word.
You cannot underestimate the devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought.
Well, yes, actually you can. You can easily underestimate it by thinking that little destruction occurred. There was quite a bit of destruction—whole communities were lost. It would be more appropriate to say:
You cannot overestimate the devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought.
==================================Tip4: Could care less/ couldn't care less
There is a phrase I can think of that suffers from the same type of confusion:
I could care less about the outcome of the Steeler’s game.
What the speaker, here, really means to say is this (assuming the speaker doesn’t care):
I couldn’t care less about the outcome of the Steeler’s game.
This means the speaker doesn’t care at all about whether the Steelers won or not. The first sentence is saying that he does care about the outcome.
[NOTE: Judging by the reactions of the people I saw on Sunday afternoon, the first sentence is really the more accurate one in Pittsburgh.]
But the issue is that ‘could care less’ is frequently used when the speaker (and I say speaker because this construct is rarely written) really means ‘couldn’t care less’ which is the American idiom.
[NOTE: The confusion between the two phrases is so common that some dictionaries consider ‘could care less’ to be an idiom meaning ‘couldn’t care less.’ Yikes!]
Many of the examples I found of these errors—understate or underestimate for overstate or overestimate—are in the political arena. Politicians seem to mistakenly underestimate a lot of things.
