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24 more examples of hilarious hyperboles

Dubai - Shashi Tharoor's World of Words is a weekly column in which the politician, diplomat, writer and wordsmith par excellence dissects words and language

My column a couple of weeks ago on hyperbole elicited the not unexpected comment, “but all this is just simple over-statement. People exaggerate all the time! How can you elevate it to a literary figure of speech?”

It’s true that we all resort to over-statement commonly enough. “Where were you? I called you a dozen times!” is often said by somebody who actually only dialled the offender, say, four or five times. Exaggerating the number is just over-statement, or exaggeration. “My suitcase weighs a ton” or “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” are common examples of that kind of hyperbole.

But literature offers interesting examples of why hyperbole is much more than mere over-statement. When the 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, decided to take on his own country’s repressive policies in its Irish colony, his attack extended to making the seemingly ridiculous proposition that Britain may as well sell Irish children for their meat. “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout,” he wrote in his savage tract A Modest Proposal. He did not intend, of course, for his idea to be taken literally: he was using the idea as hyperbole to draw his readers’ attention to the plight of Irish children under British rule.

That’s not simple over-statement: it’s not a difference of degree from the facts, it’s a difference of kind. This is why hyperbole is much more than exaggeration: whereas over-statement often takes a fact and multiplies it for effect, hyperbole often may be in direct contradiction to the facts, as when your teenage daughter tells you, “I literally died”. She is clearly alive when she says this — so she is merely using hyperbole.

Romance particularly lends itself to hyperbole: “I’d do anything for you” surely ought to come with footnotes and caveats. “I love you so much, it hurts” is an ardent declaration of feeling, but not an ailment for which any doctor can make a clinical diagnosis. (Similarly, “I love you so much, my heart’s pounding out of my chest” — sorry, that’s not physiologically possible. “You are brighter than the shiniest star” — sorry, not astronomically possible.) Separated lovers are the most prone to flights of fancy: “I would walk 500 miles just to be with you” or “I’d cross the universe if it meant seeing your smile just one more time” are typical examples of romantic hyperbole. Third parties are equally guilty. “When they met, there were fireworks in their eyes” would, if it were not hyperbole, mean they could never see anything again, let alone each other!

Routine conversation is full of hyperbole. When someone says of a thin fashion model that “she is skinny as a toothpick”, don’t take her literally — unless you have never used a toothpick! “She has a pea-sized brain” is another impossibility; so is “she’s dumber than a doorknob”. Your wife “made enough food to feed an army” is something I’ve said often myself, usually as a grateful guest. And someone announcing on a visit to the desert that “it’s hotter than hell” is, let’s face it, comparing Arabian sands with a place that he has never been to!

The advertising profession is a particular offender. Remember Gillette claiming to be “The best a man can get”? (Literally? Poor man!) Or “Red Bull gives you wings”? “The king of beers” (Budweiser) and “Breakfast of champions” (Wheaties) might be dismissed as mere over-statement, but the American cat food brand Meow Mix take the hyperbolic prize for claiming its product “tastes so good, cats ask for it by name”. A talking cat might express a contrary view, but there aren’t any around, perish the thought!

My favourite humourist, P G Wodehouse, was famous for his brilliantly inventive use of language, which inevitably included hyperbole as well. “She had more curves than a scenic railway” is one of his classics. And ending this column on that note would be, in his words, an idea “handed to me on a silver platter with watercress around it”….

wknd@khaleejtimes.com