Paralipsis (par-uh-LIP-sis) noun, plural paralipses (-seez)
Drawing attention to something while claiming to be passing over it.
[From Late Latin paralipsis, from Greek paraleipsis (an omission), from paraleipein (to leave on one side), from para- (side) + leipein (to leave).]
Paralipsis is especially handy in politics to point out an opponent's faults. It typically involves these phrases:
"not to mention"
"to say nothing of"
"I won't speak of"
"leaving aside"
Context:
"Political correctness has breathed new life into the paralepsis, the rhetorical device whereby we make a statement by first announcing that
we are not going to make it. When pundits write 'No one is suggesting...' the American eye reads 'I'm suggesting.'" - Florence King; If 'Words Mean
Things,' Then All Is Lost; Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia); Feb 19, 1995.
and just for the fun of it, here's a good quote:
"Readers may be divided into four classes: 1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also." -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic (1772-1834)
