www.PickinChickin.com
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms such as industrial park, small fortune, and many fewer.
In fact, the word oxymoron itself is oxymoronic, because it is formed from two Greek roots of opposite meaning, oxys "sharp, keen," and moros "foolish," the same root that gives us the word moron. Other single-word oxymora are sophomore, a wise fool, and bridegroom, which needs no explication.
Richard Lederer categorizes oxymora in his article Oxymoronology. The most common form of oxymora involves an adjective-noun combination.
Natural oxymora are duos whose contradictory meaning is relatively direct and effortless and does not depend on plays on words or personal values. For example, fresh frozen and final draft.
Punning oxymora depend on the ability of the listener to leap from an apparent meaning to a less-apparent one as in jumbo shrimp. "While the meaning of jumbo as "large" is obvious, we must rise above the surface significance of shrimp, "decapod crustacean," to the more elevated "small.""
Doublespeak oxymora are fabricated oxymoronic combinations with the purpose of confusing us, e. g., mandatory option and genuine imitation.
Opinion oxymora inject our personal values into the subject of interest, often used for either humourous or polemical purposes. The subtle rhetorical maneuvre in designating an XY expression as an oxymoron is to pick out a perceived or alleged property of objects of type Y, re-construe that property as if it were a defining criterion of Y, and then demonstrate that it is contradicted by X (e. g., business ethics and compasonate conservative).
Lederer ponders whether new categories of oxymora should be designated for oxymora generated by emerging technologies and new information, e. g., plastic glasses and healthy tans, respectively.
According to some "experts," what distinguishes oxymora from other paradoxes and contradictions is their intentional use for rhetorical effect; the contradiction is only apparent, as the the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept.
Lederer admits that his categories of oxymora, only a few of which have been mentioned here, are not always mutually exclusive, and that new categories may be needed to classify the varied forms of oxymora.
In conclusion: "The boundaries separating one category from another blur & shift even as we draw them, but the lines can be useful. As all taxonomists should know, it is not always easy to know where the front of a horse ends & the back begins, but we usually can perceive the difference between a horse's head & a horse's ass."
What Do You Think?
Click for More PickinChickin
Copyright 2007
Michael D Gottlieb
comments
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms such as industrial park, small fortune, and many fewer.
In fact, the word oxymoron itself is oxymoronic, because it is formed from two Greek roots of opposite meaning, oxys "sharp, keen," and moros "foolish," the same root that gives us the word moron. Other single-word oxymora are sophomore, a wise fool, and bridegroom, which needs no explication.
Richard Lederer categorizes oxymora in his article Oxymoronology. The most common form of oxymora involves an adjective-noun combination.
Natural oxymora are duos whose contradictory meaning is relatively direct and effortless and does not depend on plays on words or personal values. For example, fresh frozen and final draft.
Punning oxymora depend on the ability of the listener to leap from an apparent meaning to a less-apparent one as in jumbo shrimp. "While the meaning of jumbo as "large" is obvious, we must rise above the surface significance of shrimp, "decapod crustacean," to the more elevated "small.""
Doublespeak oxymora are fabricated oxymoronic combinations with the purpose of confusing us, e. g., mandatory option and genuine imitation.
Opinion oxymora inject our personal values into the subject of interest, often used for either humourous or polemical purposes. The subtle rhetorical maneuvre in designating an XY expression as an oxymoron is to pick out a perceived or alleged property of objects of type Y, re-construe that property as if it were a defining criterion of Y, and then demonstrate that it is contradicted by X (e. g., business ethics and compasonate conservative).
Lederer ponders whether new categories of oxymora should be designated for oxymora generated by emerging technologies and new information, e. g., plastic glasses and healthy tans, respectively.
According to some "experts," what distinguishes oxymora from other paradoxes and contradictions is their intentional use for rhetorical effect; the contradiction is only apparent, as the the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept.
Lederer admits that his categories of oxymora, only a few of which have been mentioned here, are not always mutually exclusive, and that new categories may be needed to classify the varied forms of oxymora.
In conclusion: "The boundaries separating one category from another blur & shift even as we draw them, but the lines can be useful. As all taxonomists should know, it is not always easy to know where the front of a horse ends & the back begins, but we usually can perceive the difference between a horse's head & a horse's ass."
What Do You Think?
Click for More PickinChickin
Copyright 2007
Michael D Gottlieb
comments
Free T-Shirts
www.QRSTshirts.com
family run
one or many
List of Tidbits