What is the exact meaning of the quote of Mark Twain: “Report of my death is an exaggeration”?
The exact quote, as people now report it, is: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. Exaggeration or hyperbole is the opposite of meiosis, called the belittling figure; hyperbole is used to make a lot out of a little, while meiosis makes a little out of a lot. The British and the ancient Spartans are famous for using meiosis. They call the English Channel ‘the ditch’, and their life-risking participation against the Germans in WWII “having a bit of a go at the Jerries”. Mark Twain is referring to the opposite of the belittling figure, or hyperbole, in newspaper accounts that had said he had died–an obvious exaggeration, an hyperbole–in which “the reports (that notion he had died) “have been greatly exaggerated”; which is self-evidently true since he was there to refute them.
