not to say

She was upset and (obviously) offended.

close to offended

Hello Hena and Marius!

I thought "not to say" meant something like "and"

She was upset, not to say offended. = She was upset and, of course, offended. ?

Seems that I have been misinterpreting "not to say" all this time..

Hi there!

Pucca I guess you're quite right. I think the meaning of this sentence is: Not only was she upset, but also offended. She was both upset and offended. I'm not positive, but that's how I see it:)

Cheers

Me too.

Hello again everyone,

Thank you all for your kind help! So I can use it interchangeably with "not the mention", eh?

Well, now that I have thought about this some more, I want to change my vote.

"Not to mention" means "and also this."

"Not to say" can also mean that ("And I'm not even telling you about this other thing..."), but the more common meaning is that you are stopping short of that stronger word.

He was irritated, not to say incensed. -- In this case, he was angry, but

So, "not to say" has two meanings, Barb?

She was upset, not to say offended. - This means that she was upset with no need to say offended because it's obvious?

This is more difficult than I thought!

..I think I can see the light from here, at least it's much clearer than yesterday!:)

Thanks again!

Examples culled from the Internet, some slightly modified, for illustrative purposes.


This is just another one of your completely illogical (not to say downright foolish) statements.

Will the busy—not to say already over-worked—members of the Council adopt this method?

Dell's presence in the area could be useful (not to say profitable).

School up here i

Many, but perhaps not all, uses of "not to say" are ironic. Recall that (using Wikipedia's definition) irony is a literary or rhetorical device in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood.

So when we say things like not to say, which is a claim that we don't want to say something, we often do quite de