Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. Examples would be "bittersweet" or "cruel kindness". As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox. A general meaning of "contradiction in terms" is recorded by the 1902 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
The term oxymoron is first recorded as Latinized Greek oxymōrum, in Maurus Servius Honoratus ; it is derived from the Greek word ὀξύς ' "sharp, keen, pointed" and μωρός "dull, stupid, foolish"; as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish". The word oxymoron is autological, i.e., it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word ὀξύμωρον ', which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not appear in any Ancient Greek works prior to the formation of the Latin term.
Phrases may also be presented as oxymorons for comic effect, such as comedian George Carlin's observation that the phrase "military intelligence" is an oxymoron.
Types and examples
Oxymorons in the narrow sense are a rhetorical device used deliberately by the speaker and intended to be understood as such by the listener. In a more extended sense, the term "oxymoron" has also been applied to inadvertent or incidental contradictions, as in the case of "dead metaphors". Lederer, in the spirit of "recreational linguistics", goes as far as to construct "logological oxymorons" such as reading the word nook composed of "no" and "ok" or the surname Noyes as composed of "no" plus "yes", or refers to some oxymoronic candidates as puns through the conversion of nouns into verbs, as in "divorce court", or "press release". He refers to potential oxymora such as "war games", "peacekeeping missile", "United Nations", and "airline food" as opinion-based, because some may disagree that they contain an internal contradiction.There are a number of single-word oxymorons built from "dependent morphemes", as with pre-posterous or sopho-more.
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row:
Other examples from English-language literature include: "hateful good" "proud humility", "darkness visible", "beggarly riches", "damn with faint praise", "expressive silence",
"melancholy merriment", "faith unfaithful", "falsely true", "conventionally unconventional", "tortuous spontaneity" "delighted sorrow", "loyal treachery", and "scalding coolness".
In literary contexts, the author does not usually signal the use of an oxymoron, but in rhetorical usage, it has become common practice to advertise the use of an oxymoron explicitly to clarify the argument, as in:
In this example, "Epicurean pessimist" would be recognized as an oxymoron in any case, as the core tenet of Epicureanism is equanimity. However, the explicit advertisement of the use of oxymorons opened up a sliding scale of less than obvious construction, ending in the "opinion oxymorons" such as "business ethics".
J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron.
"Comical oxymoron"
"Comical oxymoron" is a humorous claim that something is an oxymoron. This is called an "opinion oxymoron" by Lederer. The humor derives from implying that an assumption is so obvious as to be part of the lexicon. An example of such a "comical oxymoron" is "educational television": the humor derives entirely from the claim that it is an oxymoron by the implication that "television" is so trivial as to be inherently incompatible with "education". In a 2009 article called "Daredevil", Garry Wills accused William F. Buckley of popularizing this trend, based on the success of the latter's claim that "an intelligent liberal is an oxymoron".Examples popularized by comedian George Carlin in 1975 include "military intelligence" and "business ethics".
Similarly, the term "civil war" is sometimes jokingly referred to as an "oxymoron".
Other examples include "honest politician", "affordable caviar", "happily married" and "Microsoft Works".