Experiment in style: Litotes

Does the negative standpoint change the meaning?

Greetings!

If you’re new here then you can find out all about this project of mine here:

Experimenting with styles

But in a nutshell it’s this: I’ve been taking a short and very bland story and rewriting it in different styles. This time I’ve chosen to do it as litotes. What’s that? All will be revealed after the template below, which is the short story I’ve been working with.

A bang on the head (template)

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

Litotes version

Litotes, according to the OED, is:

A figure of speech, in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary; for example, “he was a citizen of no mean city”.

It was not during the day that I found myself no longer fully asleep. I didn't amble or dawdle as I made my way to the bathroom. The next thing I knew I was no longer completely "with it". Why? Because the bedroom was not exactly bathed in light, so I was not facing the direction in which the bathroom was to be found. Consequently, I avoided walking through the door, but did not escape careering into the wall. For the next few days I was spared neither nausea nor headaches.

After dithering for a not inconsiderable length of time — well, hardly more than a couple of days in reality — I went to the local hospital, not a million miles away. Whilst there I was not a little perturbed by the observation that not an insignificant number of people had eschewed the advice on social distancing and worn their' masks in a manner unlikely to lessen the possibility of spreading germs.

However, not even two hours later I left the hospital, not a little reassured that although I had not escaped the consequences of my error, the resultant concussion was not severe. The writing I did was noteworthy only because of its paucity. However, the reading I managed to do was not insignificant.

Thoughts?

If you’d like to see the entire list of styles, go to this index.

Until now, I’ve been publishing these experiments at the rate of one per week. However, in order to ease the pressure both on myself and my readers, I’m considering scheduling them every two weeks instead. If you have any thoughts about this, I’d be delighted to hear them in the comments. Thanks.