да не говоримо о

1. Meaning and Pragmatics
Да не говоримо о literally functions modally as 'let us not speak of' or 'not to speak of' (using the hortative/voluntative present with да, acting as a first-person plural directive). Rhetorically, it employs paralipsis (apophasis) to add scalar focus by deliberately setting aside a stronger or more telling example:

• Negative escalation (a fortiori): Stating that a baseline expectation is unmet, signaling that an even greater expectation is out of the question ('He cannot walk to the corner, let alone run a marathon').
• Positive culmination: Capping off an impressive list with an even more striking fact ('The hotel is spotless, not to speak of the incredible view').

2. Morpho-Syntactic Configurations
Depending on what follows, the construction appears in several distinct structures:

• With noun phrases: Preposition о + locative case:
  ...да не говоримо о новим трошковима.
• With demonstrative + content clause: Retaining о requires the locative correlate томе (то што; то да):
  — о томе да: used for non-factive, prospective, or modal content (...да не говоримо о томе да би пројекат могао пропасти).
  — о томе што: preferred when introducing established, factive realities or objective existing states of affairs (...да не говоримо о томе што нема довољно људи).
• With direct clausal complements: In colloquial speech or fast journalism, speakers sometimes attach clauses directly without a correlate (...да не говоримо да нема довољно људи) or attach embedded questions (...да не говоримо колико је времена уложено). Note that in ...да не говоримо да..., the first да is a modal/hortative particle whereas the second is a subordinating conjunction. Although syntactically distinct, this repetition of да within close proximity is stylistically avoided in elevated prose (нагомилавање речце и везника да), making the explicit correlate о томе што / да... the preferred standard choice.

3. Avoiding Government Contamination: говорити о vs. помињати
Be careful not to mix syntactic government patterns between near-synonymous expressions:

• Да не говоримо о... strictly requires the preposition о + locative (да не говоримо о трошковима).
• Да не помињемо / спомињемо is transitive and governs a direct object in the accusative case (да не помињемо трошкове).
• Never cross the two patterns to produce illicit hybrids like *да не помињемо о томе.

4. Variations and Word Order
The expression is flexible in discourse and sentence structure:

• Topicalized fronting: The prepositional phrase can be fronted for emphasis: А о цени да и не говоримо.
• Impersonal reflexive: The third-person reflexive variant is frequent in formal style: (а) да се (и) не говори о...
• Connective particles: It often appears with coordinating and focus particles: а да не говоримо о..., па да не говоримо о..., да и не говоримо о..., or in correlatives like не само... већ да не говоримо о....

5. Contrast with а камоли
Learners should distinguish да не говоримо о from а камоли:

• а камоли: A gradational conjunction (градациони везник). While it is predominantly found following negative clauses, it is also fully standard in affirmative escalations (e.g., И одрасли су се уплашили, а камоли деца). Syntactically, it does not assign case on its own; its complement simply inherits the case assigned by the governing verb of the preceding clause (or mirrors the preceding preposition, as in Не воде рачуна о себи, а камоли о деци).
• да не говоримо о: A verbal construction governing its own prepositional phrase (о + locative for nominals). It functions smoothly in both positive and negative scalar contexts without depending on the matrix clause's case licensing.