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Original copy: Oxymorons that aren't. Original copy, as fans of George Carlin and Richard Lederer know, has been a staple of the joke-oxymoron list for decades, along with jumbo shrimp, guest conductor, terribly happy, and the like. But these are only oxymoronic if you pretend that you're ignorant of one sense of the modifying word—that you think “jumbo†is an absolute measure, you've never used “guest†to mean “substitute†(â€guest conductorâ€), and you believe “terribly†must involve terror.
If you write copy for the press, can you not write "original copy", as opposed to reading the "copied copy" from the Associated Press newsfeed?
There are also "joke oxymorons". For example, calling "military intelligence" an oxymoron is just a joke at the expense of the military. I wouldn't call "military intelligence" a true oxymoron.
I discovered this thread when I was looking for the right thread to add this comment:
Is "indescribable" a one-word oxymoron? It seems like a very compact example of Russell's Paradox, as it is the descriptive word for things that cannot be described. Are there any other one-word oxymorons?
Yeah, I think Carlin's list also had postal service as an example.
Russell's Paradox is a fascinating puzzle to ponder. Douglas Hofstadter has written much about it. His classic example was "the set of all numbers that can't be expressed in less than fourteen words." Well … maybe that example can be attributed directly to Russell, but Hofstadter introduced me to the idea.
Telemath: for one-word oxymorons, add imponderable to your list.
Glenn: not sure I get sophomoric as an example of same.
I'll buy unmentionable because it's used to mention while simultaneously calling it unmentionable. Same for imponderable. Didn't you have to ponder it when you decided to call it imponderable?
I first thought that unspeakable could be or not be an oxymoron, depending on how it's used, but I can't find a "not an oxymoron" use. I really don't hear it being used in a literal sense to describe something which can't be spoken, like "Superman found Mxyzptlk's name unspeakable."
Along with those, perhaps ineffable, which M-W puts as synonymous with indescribable and unspeakable. Seems like there could be a lot in this group. Unclassifiable, f'rinstance.
So far, sophomore is the only one that stands outside of that group.
I just googled "one-word oxymoron" and found a list (http://www.jimwegryn.com/Words/Oxymora.htm) full of entries that I would reject (e.g. Seashore isn't implying that something is contradictorily both sea and shore - it's the shore of the sea). However, I like bittersweet and pianoforte.
Glenn said:
I still stand by sophomoric (as opposed to sophomore) as an admittedly different take on the problem.
I like this angle on a one-word oxymoron. However, I am not a Greek scholar and I must be missing something, Glenn, to not understand why you prefer "sophomoric." If it is not too complicated will you explain?
As you mentioned above, the etymology of "wise fool" for sophomore is an oxymoron. Although that etymology might be a folk etymology, it is nonetheless very long-standing.
The reason I prefer sophomoric to sophomore as an example of a one-word oxymoron is simply that sophomore has lost most of the connection with the "wise fool" definition. Most people and, indeed, dictionaries simply define sophomore as a year within an educational program, having nothing to do with wisdom or foolishness. The word sophomoric, by contrast, retains some of the oxymoron in definitions such as:
Merriam-Webster: sophomoric
"1. conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature "
Not monosyllabic or one word, but I came upon an "oxymoron that isn't" in a book I am reading, The Pale King, David Foster Wallace (posthumous): "spectacularly dull." It turns out this phrase is pretty common. This book, in which Wallace presents employees of the IRS and their spectacularly damaged lives, often dwells on the connection between tedium and pain.
Wallace was a genius with words. This book is unfinished, but still stands strong. His prose is almost poetic. The book is long but IMO well worth the time.
… the whole subject of tax policy and administration is dull. Massively, spectacularly dull.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this feature. Consider, from the Service's [IRS] perspective, the advantages of the dull, the arcane, the mind-numbingly complex. The IRS was one of the very first government agencies to learn that such qualities help insulate them against public protest and political opposition, and that abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy. For the great disadvantage of secrecy is that it's interesting. …
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