underspeak

English

Etymology

under- +‎ speak

Verb

underspeak (third-person singular simple present underspeaks, present participle underspeaking, simple past underspoke, past participle underspoken)

1. To speak with understatement and/or modesty.
   • 2002, Dental Economics - Volume 92, Issues 7-12, page 46:

     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.

   • 2009, Kenneth Goldsmith, I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews:

     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.

   • 2018, Norman Percy Grubb, Modern Viking:

     I do beg you to underspeak about the spread or work of I.C.L.

2. To fail to say enough; to be too taciturn.
   • 1965, TV Guide, page 33:

     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.

   • 2002, Bruce Stovel, Lynn Weinlos, Lynn Weinlos Gregg, The Talk in Jane Austen, page xxi:

     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.

   • 2010, Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach:

     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

3. To speak without sufficient emphasis or volume.
   • 1912, The Academy and Literature - Volume 83, page 25:

     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.

   • 1941, Frayne Williams, Mr. Shakespeare of The Globe, page 146:

     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.

   • 1973, John Springer, Fonda's Films and Careers of Henry, Jane and Peter Fonda, page 20:

     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.

   • 1981, Roy A. Beck, Radio Speaking, page 19:

     The test level can help prevent you from "booming," "blasting, " or "underspeaking" so you cannot comfortably be heard.

   • 1986, Today's Parish - Volumes 18-19, page cxii:

     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.

4. To speak at the same time as and more quietly than another.
   • 1985, Richard G. Lazar, Menahem Davyd Lazar, Beyond 1984: The Vassar Symposium, page 63:

     Today subliminal messages are sent by “underspeaking" on television, radio, and records and “invisigraph" (invisible messages) on printed ads.

   • 2003, Barbara Green, King Saul's Asking, page 34:

     A good deal of what transpires is characters at cross-purposes, underspeaking, talking past each other.

Noun

underspeak (uncountable)

1. Speech that is characterized by understatement.
   • 2003, Kate Fowle, Deborah Smith, To be Continued: Artists' Interventions Into the Public Realm, page 55:

     But that really is a piece of marketing underspeak for this fantastic fetid backplot.

   • 2014, David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary Of Film 6th Edition:

     For some people growing up then, Coward was a bit of a mystery: his later plays were not very good; his pose as a model of cool manners was regarded as effete or snobbish; and the well-intentioned determination to get down to the nitty-gritty left little room for Coward. He and the underspeak of Brief Encounter (45, David Lean) had become dated, and I daresay that hurt him, for a part of him was terribly anxious to be up-to-date (even if he once, à la Wilde, said that no pursuit left you looking more old-fashioned).

   • 2017, Robert Gaudi, African Kaiser:

     Even the British government's Official History describes Aitken's battle plan uncharitably, "founded on an infantry drill and tactics not yet modified by fresh war experience." Translation from official British underspeak: a disaster brought on by the sclerotic military brain of a general who'd never fought a real battle.