[4] The device is also called paralipsis (παράλειψις) – also spelled paraleipsis or paralepsis – or occupatio or occultatio,[5][6][7][8][9] and known also as praeteritio, preterition, or parasiopesis (παρασιώπησις).
For example, It can be employed to raise an ad hominem or otherwise controversial attack while disclaiming responsibility for it, as in, "I refuse to discuss the rumor that my opponent is a drunk."
")[10] Apophasis can be used to discuss a taboo subject, as in, "We are all fully loyal to the emperor, so we wouldn't dare to claim that his new clothes are a transparent hoax."
As a rhetorical device, it can serve various purposes, often dependent on the relationship of the speaker to the addressee and the extent of their shared knowledge.
[citation needed] Apophasis can serve to politely avoid the suggestion of ignorance on the part of an audience, as found in the narrative style of Adso of Melk in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, where the character fills in details of early fourteenth-century history for the reader by stating it is unnecessary to speak of them.
[12] When apophasis is taken to its extreme, the speaker provides full details, stating or drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over: "I will not stoop to mentioning the occasion last winter when our esteemed opponent was found asleep in an alleyway with an empty bottle of vodka still pressed to his lips.
In 1988, he applied a harsher apophasis toward George H. W. Bush's opponent Michael Dukakis, who was rumored to have received psychological treatment: "Look, I'm not going to pick on an invalid.