Oxymoron

This article is about the contradiction in terms. For thepunk band, see Oxymoron (band). For the album byrapper Schoolboy Q, see Oxymoron (album).

An oxymoron (plural oxymora or oxymorons) is afigure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear tobe contradictory. Oxymora appear in a variety of con-texts, including inadvertent errors (such as “ground pi-lot”) and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.

1 Types

The most common form of oxymoron involves anadjective–noun combination of two words. For example,the following line from Tennyson's Idylls of the King con-tains two oxymora:

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

Other examples of oxymora of this kind include:

• Dark light• Living dead (but has been used for a type of super-natural being)

• Guest host (also: Permanent guest host)• Crazy wisdom• Mournful optimist• Violent relaxation (but has been used as a technicalterm in development of galaxies)

Less often seen are noun–verb combinations of twowords, such as the line “The silence whistles” fromNathanAlterman's “SummerNight”, or in a song title likeSimon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".Oxymora are not always a pair of words; they can also bedevised in the meaning of sentences or phrases.

2 Etymology

Oxymoron is derived from the 5th century Latin oxy-moron, which is derived from the Ancient Greek: ὀξύςoxus “sharp, keen” and μωρόςmōros “dull, stupid”, mak-ing the word itself an oxymoron.[1] However, the com-bined Greek form ὀξύμωρον (oxumōron) does not in factappear in the extant Greek sources.[2]

3 Taxonomy

Richard Lederer assembled a taxonomy of oxymora inan article inWord Ways in 1990,[3] running from single-word oxymora such as "pianoforte" (literally, “soft-loud”)through "doublespeak oxymora” (deliberately intended toconfuse) and “opinion oxymora” (editorial opinions de-signed to provoke a laugh). In general, oxymora can bedivided into expressions that were deliberately crafted tobe contradictory and those phrases that inadvertently orincidentally contain a contradiction, often as a result of apunning use of one or both words.

4 Apparent oxymora

Many oxymora have been popularised in vernacularspeech. Examples include “controlled chaos”, “an hon-ourable death”, “open secret”, “organized mess”, “alonein a crowd”, and “accidentally on purpose”.There are also examples in which terms that are super-ficially contradictory are juxtaposed in such a way thatthere is no contradiction. Examples include “same differ-ence”, “jumbo shrimp”, and “hot ice” (where “hot” means“stolen” and “ice” means “diamonds”, in criminal argot).

5 Oxymora as paradoxes

Writers often use an oxymoron to call attention to an ap-parent contradiction. For example, Wilfred Owen's poem"The Send-off" refers to soldiers leaving for the front line,who “lined the train with faces grimly gay.” The oxy-moron “grimly gay” highlights the contradiction betweenhow the soldiers feel and how they act: though they puton a brave face and act cheerfully, they feel grim.Similarly, in Henry James' novella The Lesson of theMas-ter, a character is described as dressed in a manner “con-ventionally unconventional, suggesting a tortuous spon-taneity.” In this way James highlights the contradictionbetween the character’s desire to appear spontaneous, andthe efforts she makes to appear so.One case where many oxymora are strung together can befound in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeodeclares:

O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

1

2 7 VISUAL AND PHYSICAL OXYMORA

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sickhealth!

Some paradoxical oxymora become clichés:

• Deafening silence

• Dry drunk

• Forward retreat

• Irregular pattern

• Serious joke

• Sweet sorrow

• Lead from behind

6 Terms falsely called oxymora forrhetorical effect

Although a true oxymoron is “something that is surpris-ingly true, a paradox”, Garry Wills has argued that mod-ern usage has brought a commonmisunderstanding[4] that“oxymoron” is nearly synonymous with “contradiction”.The introduction of this misuse, the opposite of its truemeaning, has been credited to William F. Buckley.[5]

Sometimes a pair of terms is claimed to be an oxymoronby those who hold the opinion that the two are mutuallyexclusive. That is, although there is no inherent contradic-tion between the terms, the speaker expresses the opinionthat the two terms imply properties or characteristics thatcannot occur together. Such claims may be made purelyfor humorous effect. Comedian George Carlin popu-larized many examples, such as “military intelligence”,“freedom fighters”, and “business ethics”. Another ex-ample is the term “civil war”, which is not an oxymoron,but can be claimed to be so for humorous effect, if “civil”is construed as meaning “polite” rather than “between cit-izens of the same state”. Alternatively, such claims mayreflect a genuinely held opinion or ideological position.Well-known examples include claims made against “gov-ernment worker”, “honest broker”, “educational televi-sion”, "Microsoft Works", and “working from home”.

7 Visual and physical oxymora

In his bookMore on Oxymoron, the artist Patrick Hughesdiscusses and gives examples of visual oxymorons. Hewrites:

In the visual version of oxymoron, the ma-terial of which a thing is made (or appears tobe made) takes the place of the adjective, andthe thing itself (or thing represented) takes theplace of the noun.[6]

Oxymoron by Acke Hydén, Landskrona konsthall

Examples include waves in the sand, a fossil tree, andtopiary representing something solid like an ocean liner.Hughes lists further examples of oxymoronic objects,including:[7]

• Artificial grass

• Bricked-up windows

• Ceramic eggs to persuade hens to lay

• Electric candles

• Floating soap

• Invisible ink

• Joke rubber coat hooks

• Plastic glass (for drinking)

• Plastic lemons

• Rubber bones for dogs

• Solid water (ice)

• Solid wooden bottle moulds

• Wax fruit

• Ironwood

3

8 Other languages

Oxymora, in the sense of “single-word oxymora” such as"pianoforte", are very common in Chinese and neighbor-ing languages such as Japanese, and consist of two oppos-ing Chinese characters. Archetypal examples include(man and woman, male and female, gender), (yin andyang), (good and evil, morality), and are used to indi-cate couples, ranges, or the trait that these are extremesof.

9 See also

• Auto-antonym

• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

• Contradictio in terminis

• Irony

• Paradox

• Performative contradiction

• Pleonasm (redundant phrases)

• Retronym (some retronyms form oxymorons).

• Sarcasm

• Self refuting idea

• Tautology

• Wooden iron

10 References

[1] ὀξύμωρος in Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert(1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, revised and augmentedthroughout by Jones, Sir Henry Stuart, with the assistanceof McKenzie, Roderick. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Inthe Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. Retrieved2013-02-26.

[2] “oxymoron |accessdate 26 February 2013”. Oxford En-glish Dictionary.

[3] Richard Lederer, “Oxymoronology” Word Ways: TheJournal of Recreational Linguistics, 1990, reprinted onfun-with-words.com

[4] “Wills watching by Michael McDonald”. The New Crite-rion. Retrieved 2012-03-27.

[5] "Daredevil - GarryWills”. The Atlantic. 2009-07-01. Re-trieved 2012-03-27.

[6] Hughes, Patrick (1984). More on Oxymoron (PDF).Jonathan Cape Ltd. p. 47. ISBN 0-224-02246-6.(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Li-cense.) According to Hughes’ website“Books authoredor co-authored by Patrick Hughes”. Retrieved 7 October2010.

[7] Hughes, Patrick (1984). More on Oxymoron. JonathanCape Ltd. p. 72. ISBN 0-224-02246-6.

11 Further reading• Shen, Yeshayahu (1987). “On the structure and un-derstanding of poetic oxymoron”. Poetics Today8 (1): 105–122. doi:10.2307/1773004. JSTOR1773004.

4 12 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

12 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

12.1 Text• Oxymoron Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron?oldid=676088204 Contributors: The Epopt, Sjc, Ortolan88, Jaknouse, Dev-ilRaysFan, Michael Hardy, IZAK, Pagingmrherman, KAMiKAZOW, Ffx, Nikai, Netsnipe, Cadr, Andres, Smack, Nohat, Dandrake,Mendor, Haukurth, Maximus Rex, Furrykef, Bloodshedder, Bcorr, Pakaran, Donarreiskoffer, Robbot, Kizor, ZimZalaBim, Psychonaut,Rorro, Premeditated Chaos, Meelar, Auric, Caknuck, Wereon, Seth Ilys, Vuara, GreatWhiteNortherner, Alan Liefting, Kenny sh, Tomharrison, Lupin, Everyking, Lefty, Micru, Saaga, Djegan, Macrakis, Edcolins, Rheun, Mike R, Antandrus, Dinero, Joyous!, Xoddf2,Sonett72, Kadambarid, Cun, Mike Rosoft, Alkivar, Spiffy sperry, Slady, Discospinster, FrickFrack, Bishonen, Quiensabe, Dbachmann,Paul August, ESkog, JoeSmack, El C, Shanes, Triona, Bobo192, Spalding, Marblespire, Duk, .:Ajvol:., Angie Y., Richi, Sriram sh,TACD, Hesperian, Helix84, Sam Korn, Alansohn, Gary, Anthony Appleyard, Yamla, Albino Fox, Snowolf, Ombudsman, Krazykil-laz, Bsadowski1, Shimeru, Gosgood, Sam Vimes, Newnoise~enwiki, Vanished User 3388458, ScottDavis, Camw, TomTheHand, Ekem,BlankVerse, Sdgjake, Tabletop, Htetrasme, PhattyFatt, Waldir, Stefanomione, PhilippWeissenbacher, Mandarax, Dpaking, Graham87,BD2412, Kbdank71, FreplySpang, Wahkeenah, Netan'el, Afterwriting, The wub, DoubleBlue, Matt Deres, MapsMan, Fred Bradstadt, Ya-mamoto Ichiro, Berserk798, Saksham, FlaBot, Doc glasgow, Jak123, Aligator Man, Margosbot~enwiki, AndriuZ, Brendan Moody, Rare,Joedeshon, Theshibboleth, Vanished user psdfiwnef3niurunfiuh234ruhfwdb7, Chobot, DaGizza, DVdm, Random user 39849958, Frank-Tobia, Loco830, Ben Tibbetts, The Rambling Man, YurikBot, Pigman, SluggoOne, Rick Norwood, Dysmorodrepanis~enwiki, Leutha,Janke, Arichnad, Jaxl, SigPig, Mccready, Aaron Brenneman, Brian Crawford, Jpbowen, Panscient, Falcon9x5, Kkarcher, Zephalis, Vlad,Nescio, DuffDudeX1, Black Falcon, Alpha 4615, Wknight94, Raistlin8r, FF2010, Lt-wiki-bot, Closedmouth, SMcCandlish, BorgQueen,Geoffrey.landis, Jaranda, Katieh5584, Thomas Blomberg, Airconswitch, SkerHawx, David Wahler, Luk, Phinnaeus, SmackBot, Lestrade,RBrackstone, Prodego, Unyoyega, Ifnord, WookieInHeat, Delldot, Firstrock, Sansvoix, Imzadi1979, Gaff, Gilliam, Betacommand, Trebor,Donbas, Thumperward, Poetryarchive, Greatgavini, Nbarth, Hgrosser, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Cheezwzl, LukasPietsch, Avb, Bi-sected8, Alice.haugen, DrDnar, Pevarnj, Nakon, Richard001, Eran of Arcadia, BullRangifer, Jon Awbrey, Wybot, Michalchik, Doownyl32,Terrasidius, J.smith, Saippuakauppias, ArglebargleIV, AThing, John, Gobonobo, JorisvS, Minna Sora no Shita, Ckatz, Hvn0413, Jeez19,Renrenren, Sara123abc, Tasoskessaris, Achorn316, MTSbot~enwiki, Peyre, KJS77, Nox13last, Dysprod1975, Asclepias, IvanLanin, LateLeo, Cls14, Mrguyguy226, Ewulp, Tawkerbot2, The Letter J, Powerslide, Nicd, Will Pittenger, INkubusse, Wolfdog, Picaroon, Baiji, Sear-les2sels, KnightLago, Dgw, Gregbard, Cydebot, Anurooparora, WillowW, Peterdjones, Michaelas10, Corpx, Daniel J. 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