underspeak
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: underspeaks
form: underspeaking
form: underspoke
form: underspoken
Etymology: From under- + speak.
Senses: examples: text: Dentists often underspeak and therefore underrate dental conditions. Patients interpret these words to mean there is no problem, only to be surprised later when they learn treatment will be required.
ref: 2002, Dental Economics - Volume 92, Issues 7-12, page 46:
text: He underspoke them. A chanteuse is supposed to “sell” the song. Andy, like Blossom, stinted the standard, gave it less, in order to give (secretly) more.
ref: 2009, Kenneth Goldsmith, I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews:
text: I do beg you to underspeak about the spread or work of I.C.L.
ref: 2018, Norman Percy Grubb, Modern Viking:
glosses: To speak with understatement and/or modesty.
examples: text: By a remarkable analysis of what he called Churchill's "peculiar gift of overwriting and underspeaking," Burton also managed to leave us — as after one of Sir Winston's own speeches — with a feeling of love and of thanks for the privilege of living in the same age with Churchill.
ref: 1965, TV Guide, page 33:
text: Ronald Hall, in “Mishearing, Misreading, and the Language of Listening.” focusses on the way Austen's characters underspeak and overhear or overspeak and underhear, causing a comedy of misunderstanding that ultimately resolves itself throuhg the attainment of proper modes of listening.
ref: 2002, Bruce Stovel, Lynn Weinlos, Lynn Weinlos Gregg, The Talk in Jane Austen, page xxi:
text: A spokesperson should say just enough to get his or her talking points across effectively—and no more. There is a fine line between overspeaking and underspeaking; planning and practice help the spokesperson determine that line
ref: 2010, Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach:
glosses: To fail to say enough; to be too taciturn.
examples: text: She was obviously nervous, and consequently underacted and underspoke her part several times ; yet, with her musical speech and natural manner, she should be a considerable acquisition to the company.
ref: 1912, The Academy and Literature - Volume 83, page 25:
text: The surest way to make it seem that an actor is overacting and being too noisy is for all the others in the cast to underspeak, clip their words, and underact—not only in relation to the actor in question, but to underact each other.
ref: 1941, Frayne Williams, Mr. Shakespeare of The Globe, page 146:
text: At one point after the play had been playing for several years, I went to see it, and found that they were all trying to underplay Fonda— even to underspeak him.
ref: 1973, John Springer, Fonda's Films and Careers of Henry, Jane and Peter Fonda, page 20:
text: The test level can help prevent you from "booming," "blasting, " or "underspeaking" so you cannot comfortably be heard.
ref: 1981, Roy A. Beck, Radio Speaking, page 19:
text: Suit your cadence to the phrases, your phrases to the cadence, as they are given you— just so— with this special observance, that you do not underspeak the urgencies of inspiration.
ref: 1986, Today's Parish - Volumes 18-19, page cxii:
glosses: To speak without sufficient emphasis or volume.
examples: text: Today subliminal messages are sent by “underspeaking" on television, radio, and records and “invisigraph" (invisible messages) on printed ads.
ref: 1985, Richard G. Lazar, Menahem Davyd Lazar, Beyond 1984: The Vassar Symposium, page 63:
text: A good deal of what transpires is characters at cross-purposes, underspeaking, talking past each other.
ref: 2003, Barbara Green, King Saul's Asking, page 34:
glosses: To speak at the same time as and more quietly than another.