Address & Argument
Correctio / Epanorthosis
Making a statement and immediately revising it: “a hundred — no, a thousand times.” The correction can sharpen a description or show a speaker reconsidering their words.
"Sixty Million and more" — Morrison's epigraph revising itself upward
Don't confuse it with Aposiopesis. Aposiopesis abandons the sentence; correctio revises it in flight and keeps going.
Examples
We lost a day—no, we lost a whole season.
The speaker explicitly replaces the first description with a stronger one.
Often used alongside this device
Explore devices that often appear in the same passages as correctio / epanorthosis.
The rest of the family
Rhetorical Question Apostrophe Invocation Aphorism Enthymeme Parrhesia Metabasis Amplificatio Aporia Enargeia / Vivid Specificity