I knew it had a name – and I’ve been trying to remember what that name was for years. I’ve asked friends, family, professionals, experts – but evidently my friends and family weren’t studying rhetoric and the experts and professionals were experts and professionals in completely the wrong fields. But I now know the name for the rhetorical trope where you mention by omission (“I won’t mention the prime minister’s predeliction for brandy – or bring up (yet again) the chancellor’s fetish for ladies underwear”), and that name is… paralepsis. [Find out more about rhetoric]
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