Editing Understatement (section)

==Use by the English==
{{main|English understatement}}
Understatement is often used rhetorically to emphasize a point. It is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures. For example, in ''[[Monty Python's The Meaning of Life]]'', an Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody stump and responds, "Stings a bit."

The well-known [[Victorian era|Victorian]] critique of [[Cleopatra]]'s behaviour as exemplified in [[Sarah Bernhardt]]'s performance in ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'': "How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear [[Queen Victoria|Queen]]!".<ref>The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, rev. 4th ed., Anonymous, 14:12, which notes that the quote is "probably apocryphal"</ref>

In April 1951, during the [[Battle of the Imjin River]] of the [[Korean War]], 650 British fighting men{{snd}}soldiers and officers from the 1st Battalion, the [[Gloucestershire Regiment]]{{snd}}were deployed on the most important crossing on the river to block the traditional invasion route to Seoul. The [[People's Liberation Army|Chinese]] had sent an entire division{{snd}}10,000 men{{snd}}to smash the isolated Glosters aside in a major offensive to take the whole Korean peninsula, and the small force was gradually surrounded and overwhelmed. After two days' fighting, an American, Major General [[Robert H Soule]], asked the British brigadier, [[Thomas Brodie]]: "How are the Glosters doing?" The brigadier, schooled in Britain and thus British humour, replied: "A bit [[Sticky wicket|sticky]], things are pretty sticky down there." To American ears, this did not sound desperate, and so he ordered them to stand fast. Only 40 Glosters managed to escape.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1316777/The-day-650-Glosters-faced-10000-Chinese.html | work=The Daily Telegraph | title=The day 650 Glosters faced 10,000 Chinese | date=20 April 2001}}</ref>

During the Kuala-Lumpur-to-Perth leg of [[British Airways Flight 9]] on 24 June 1982, [[volcanic ash]] caused all four engines of the [[Boeing 747]] aircraft to fail. Although pressed for time as the aircraft rapidly lost altitude, Captain Eric Moody still managed to make an announcement to the passengers: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."<ref name="Air Disaster">{{cite book | last=Job | author-link=Macarthur Job | first=Macarthur | title=Air Disaster Volume 2| publisher=Aerospace Publications | year=1994 | isbn=1-875671-19-6 | pages=96–107}}</ref>