Imagine you are watching a heated political debate. One candidate leans into the microphone, looks deeply into the camera, and says with a tone of structured restraint, “I will not stoop to the level of mentioning my opponent’s unfortunate history of tax evasion. I am here to discuss policy, not his personal financial scandals.”
The crowd gasps. The opponent flushes red. The speaker has claimed the moral high ground by refusing to discuss a topic, yet by stating that refusal, they have managed to discuss the topic anyway. They have planted the seed while pretending not to dig the hole.
In the world of linguistics and rhetoric, this savvy (and often sneaky) maneuver is known as Paralipsis. It is the art of emphasizing a subject by significantly pretending to pass over it. For language learners and rhetoric enthusiasts alike, understanding paralipsis offers a fascinating glimpse into how we can say things without technically saying them—and why the human brain finds this contradiction so irresistible.
To understand the mechanics of this device, we must look to its roots. Like many of our best rhetorical terms, paralipsis (sometimes spelled paraleipsis) comes from Greek. It represents a combination of para (meaning “beside”) and leipein (meaning “to leave”). Literally, it translates to “leaving to one side.”
In the Latin rhetorical tradition, this figure of speech was known as praeteritio (preterition), regarding the act of passing over something. Whether you call it paralipsis, preterition, or its close cousin apophasis (denial), the linguistic function is the same: it is a performative contradiction.
Linguistically, paralipsis creates a fascinating friction between the locutionary act (what is said: “I will not speak of X”) and the illocutionary force (what is done: Speaking of X). It highlights the difference between the semantic meaning of a sentence and its pragmatic function in discourse.
Why is paralipsis so prevalent in political discourse? The answer lies in plausible deniability and the framing of character.
When a politician uses paralipsis, they achieve two goals simultaneously:
Consider the introductory example: “I won’t even mention my opponent’s tax evasion.” If the opponent complains, the speaker can literally look at the transcript and say, “But I said I wouldn’t mention it! I was trying to move the conversation along!”
It allows the speaker to play both the aggressor and the pacifist. In linguistics, we view this as a manipulation of focus structure. By ostensibly placing information in the background (claiming it is unworthy of mention), the speaker actually pulls it into the foreground (focus) because the act of negation is cognitively demanding. The brain must conjure the image of “tax evasion” to process the sentence.
While modern politicians are clumsy users of the device, the ancients were the masters. The Roman orator Cicero arguably wielded paralipsis better than anyone in history. In his famous Catiline Orations, aimed at exposing a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman government, Cicero tormented Catiline with praeteritio.
He famously said:
“I say nothing of the ruined state of your fortune, which you will feel all hanging on your heads by the next Ides…”
By saying he would “say nothing” of Catiline’s bankruptcy, Cicero made sure the entire Senate focused exclusively on Catiline’s bankruptcy. It is a linguistic sleight of hand.
We see this in English literature as well. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Mark Antony delivers one of the most famous rhetorical speeches in history. During his funeral oration, he produces Caesar’s will but refuses to read it:
“Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it; / It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.”
By refusing to read the will, Antony ensures that the crowd wants nothing more than to hear the will. He incites a riot by pretending to try to calm one down.
You don’t have to be a Roman Senator or a slippery politician to use paralipsis. In fact, you probably use it—or hear it—every day. The English language has fossilized paralipsis into several common idioms and discourse markers.
Consider the phrase: “The hotel was dirty and expensive, not to mention the rude staff.”
If we analyze this strictly logically, the speaker has failed. They explicitly said they were “not to mention” the rude staff, and then immediately mentioned them. However, in English pragmatics, “not to mention” has evolved from a literal statement of intent into an additive conjunction similar to “furthermore” or “especially.” It signals that the following item is so obvious or overwhelming that it ostensibly requires no articulation, even though we are articulating it.
This device is also the gold standard of passive-aggressive arguments between roommates or partners.
In all these instances, the “mentioning by ignoring” serves to vent frustration while attempting to avoid the social penalty of being seen as a complainer.
Why is paralipsis so effective? Why doesn’t the audience just roll their eyes and ignore the contradiction? The answer lies in psychology, specifically something called Ironic Process Theory.
Studied by social psychologist Daniel Wegner, this theory is often illustrated by the “White Bear” experiment. If you tell someone, “Don’t think of a white bear”, the immediate and overwhelming result is that they will think of a white bear. To actively not think of something requires a part of your brain to constantly check, “Am I thinking about the white bear?” essentially keeping the bear in your working memory.
Paralipsis weaponizes this psychological quirk. When a speaker says, “I will not discuss the scandal”, the listener’s brain must access the concept of “the scandal” to understand what is being negated. Because the speaker framed it as forbidden or “passed over”, the prohibited information gains a tantalizing allure. It frames the information as an open secret shared between the speaker and the listener, fostering a false sense of intimacy.
For students of linguistics and language, identifying paralipsis is a great exercise in critical thinking. It teaches us to look past the surface grammar of a sentence and examine the intent.
Next time you are reading an opinion piece or watching the news, listen for the trigger phrases:
When you hear these, ask yourself: Why did the speaker feel the need to bring this up while claiming to put it down? Usually, you will find that the thing they “left to the side” was actually the main course all along.
Paralipsis proves that in language, silence isn’t always golden—sometimes, the loudest way to say something is to promise you’ll keep your mouth shut.
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