What is the origin of the phrase 'cannot be overstated'?

[Hornbein]

Such-and-such "cannot be overstated." I see this figure of speech often. It wasn't around in the 20th century. Where did it come from?

I suggest it appeared in 2012 with first "The Hunger Games" film where a TV emcee says this.

I also often see it gotten wrong, as in "the importance of this cannot be understated."

 

[Bandersnatch]

It wasn't around in the 20th century.

Google books has examples going back to the 19th century.

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you can get your hands on the OED - the full multivolume one - it will have a first use.

 

[Janus]

As to "the importance of this cannot be understated." goes, this could well be due to someone using "cannot" in place of "should not" . For example, people often say something like, "We cannot let this happen." rather than, "We should not let this happen", since "cannot" appears to carry more weight.

 

[Borek]

Could be interesting to check how similar phrases work in other languages, especially those used by minorities in English speaking countries.

Polish is far from being able to influence English, but we have a similar phrase ("nie da się przecenić" - smth like "can't be priced too high"), and I know from experience bilingual people tend to mangle such things (especially when there is some kind of gradation involved and when the intended meaning is different from the verbatim meaning).

 

[pinball1970]

Could be interesting to check how similar phrases work in other languages, especially those used by minorities in English speaking countries.

Polish is far from being able to influence English, but we have a similar phrase ("nie da się przecenić" - smth like "can't be priced too high"), and I know from experience bilingual people tend to mangle such things (especially when there is some kind of gradation involved and when the intended meaning is different from the verbatim meaning).

Yeah the students we supervised as ESL were really interested in slang and phrases that had their mother tongue equivalent.
"Stag do," was one.

 

[Hill]

"nie da się przecenić" - smth like "can't be priced too high"

"Нельзя переоценить" ~ "nel'zia pereotcenit'" - "cannot be overvalued", in Russian.

 

[JT Smith]

If you can get your hands on the OED - the full multivolume one - it will have a first use.

I thought "Oh cool, I've got that, I'll go look it up!" Well it turns out we have the "compact" OED. It's two volumes that are each about 15lbs. It hurts to lift one of them and you kind of need a magnifying glass to read the text on the tissue-thin pages. That's the compact version.

I looked at oed.com and they listed the oldest known use of the phrase in 1792: (link)

 

[Vanadium 50]

They used to - and maybe still do - sell the compact one with a magnifying glass.

I learned about this when I reached out to them correcting a first use. I was kind of hoping they would give me an OED as a token of thanks, nut no such luck.

 

[JT Smith]

They used to - and maybe still do - sell the compact one with a magnifying glass.

I learned about this when I reached out to them correcting a first use. I was kind of hoping they would give me an OED as a token of thanks, nut no such luck.

Yeah, it's got a little drawer on top of the case with a big magnifying glass in it. I don't how old the set is but it was probably from the 1980s. I kind of overestimated the weight though. The second volume weighed in at 8.4lbs.

Too bad they didn't gift you a set. I imagine you can get all of this information online now although maybe not for free. I kind of miss the old stuff, awkward as it was. As a tiny tot I learned how to add and subtract by using the volume numbers printed on the spines of our Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia as a guide.

There used to be encyclopedia salesmen, imagine that!

 

[Vanadium 50]

There used to be encyclopedia salesmen, imagine that!

I remember encyclopedias. I was giving a colloquium somewhere or other, and I found a racy, spicy, book in my hotel room entitled "Girl to Grab". Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was Volume 7 of the encyclopedia. <rimshot>