English Language & Usage Asked by Stephen Turner on May 24, 2021
Is there a phrase for complimenting someone by jokingly pretending that their good point is a flaw? Let me give an example, précised from a recent WhatsApp conversation:
A: That bike ride was way too windy.
B: Well your problem is that you’re too light. You’re at risk of being blown away in anything more than a gentle breeze.
C: Yes, you should eat more pies.
Of course B and C are really complimenting A’s lack of weight relative to their own.
It’s something like the opposite of a backhanded compliment (in which an insult is disguised as a compliment), so I wondered about backhanded insult, but (a) that phrase doesn’t seem to be widely used; (b) it doesn’t seem to be used consistently, sometimes being a synonym for backhanded compliment (perhaps by people who are confused about the meaning of the latter?); and (c) such examples as there are seem to be more insulting than my example. (Refs: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Backhanded%20Insult, https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-backhanded-compliment-and-a-backhanded-insult).
I also wondered about something derived from damned with faint praise, as in this question: Opposite of 'damned with faint praise'?. Again it’s not quite right though: "praised with faint damnation" would mean that you’re finding a genuine but tiny flaw, with the implication that that’s the worst you can find to say; in my example the flaw is not genuine, it’s exactly their good point that is being humourously presented as a flaw.
So does anyone have a better way to describe this device?
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