My non-native English speaking wife regularly challenges me on my use of the phrase, "Not bad". "So it's good then...?", she'll immediately come back with. "Not exactly...", I'll explain and then fail to.
She sees it as another example of the bafflingly impreciseness of the English language and by extension, its people.
So I was surprised to discover the tendency to do this is an ancient rhetorical device that goes back at least as far as Cicero, and it also has a word to describe it. Litotes.
Further, it is not just me that uses it. Our politicians are regularly at it. For example, Ed Miliband when describing the Conservative government as making things worse chose the phrase "Not by accident" rather than the considerably blunter "On purpose". One phrase slips into your subconscious thought like a furtive dagger under the ribcage while the other is more like a broadsword to the neck.
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