Being one of my favourite rhetorical tropes....
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]
