Editing Oxymoron

{{Short description|Figure of speech}}
{{About|the contradiction in terms|other uses|Oxymoron (disambiguation)}}
[[File:Oxymoron (PSF).png|thumb|317x317px|Oxymorons are words that communicate contradictions.]]
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}

An '''oxymoron''' (plurals: '''oxymorons''' and '''oxymora''') is a [[figure of speech]] that [[Juxtaposition|juxtaposes]] concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a [[self-contradiction (disambiguation)|self-contradiction]]. As a [[rhetorical device]], an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a [[paradox]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lewis |first1=Charlton T. |last2=Short |first2=Charles |title=A Latin Dictionary |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=oxymorus |publisher=Clarendon Press |access-date=27 October 2015 |location=Oxford |date=1879 |quote=''acutely silly'': oxymora verba, ''expressions which at first sight appear absurd, but which contain a concealed point''; so especially of such apparently contradictory assertions as: cum tacent clamant, etc.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jebb |first1=Richard C. |title=Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone |date=1900 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=567 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0023:text=comm:commline=74&highlight=o%29cu%2Fmwron |chapter=Sophocles, ''Oedipus at Colonus'' |quote=The phrase is an '' 'ὀξύμωρον' '' (a paradox with a point).}}</ref> A general meaning of "contradiction in terms" is recorded by the 1902 edition of the ''Oxford English Dictionary.<ref>"A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis" ''[[OED]]''</ref>

The term ''oxymoron'' is first recorded as Latinized Greek ''{{lang|la|oxymōrum}}'', in [[Maurus Servius Honoratus]] (c. AD 400);<ref>Honoratus on ''[[Aeneid]]'' 7.295, ''num capti potuere capi'' (in the voice of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]]) "Could captured slaves not be enslaved again?" (William 1910): ''capti potuere capi, cum felle dictum est: nam si hoc removeas, erit oxymorum.'' "the captured can be captured: said with bitterness, for if you were to remove that, it would be ''oxymorum''." see H. Klingenberg in Birkmann et al. (ed.), ''FS Werner'', de Gruyter (1997), [https://books.google.com/books?id=F5UDDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA143 p. 143].</ref> it is derived from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] word {{lang|grc|ὀξύς}} ''{{Transliteration|grc|oksús}}'' "sharp, keen, pointed"<ref name="LSJ1">{{LSJ|o)cu/s2|ὀξύς|longref}} Retrieved 26 February 2013.</ref> and {{lang|grc|μωρός}} {{Transliteration|grc|''mōros''}} "dull, stupid, foolish";<ref>{{LSJ|mwro/s|μωρός|shortref}}. Retrieved 26 February 2013.</ref> as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".<ref name="LSJ2">{{LSJ|o)cu/mwros|ὀξύμωρος|shortref}}. Retrieved 26 February 2013. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd."</ref> The word ''oxymoron'' is [[autological]], i.e., it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word {{lang|grc|ὀξύμωρον}} ''{{Transliteration|grc|oksýmōron}}'', which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not appear in any Ancient Greek works prior to the formation of the Latin term.<ref>{{cite dictionary |dictionary=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |entry-url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/135679?rskey=7ZL0rI&result=3&isAdvanced=false |entry-url-access=subscription |entry=oxymoron |access-date=26 February 2013}}</ref>

==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 metaphor]]s" ("barely clothed" or "terribly good"). Lederer (1990), 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.<ref name="Lederer">[[Richard Lederer]], "Oxymoronology" in  ''[[Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics]]'' (1990), online version: [http://www.fun-with-words.com/oxym_oxymoronology.html fun-with-words.com].</ref>

There are a number of single-word oxymorons built from "dependent morphemes"<ref name="Lederer" /> (i.e. no longer a productive [[English compound|compound]] in English, but loaned as a compound from a different language), as with ''[[wikt:preposterous|pre-posterous]]'' (lit. "with the hinder part before", compare ''[[hysteron proteron]]'', "[[:wikt: upside-down|upside-down]]", "[[:wikt:head over heels|head over heels]]", "[[wikt:ass-backwards|ass-backwards]]" etc.)<ref>"closely related to hysteron proteron, it shouldn't be ''ass backward'', which is the proper arrangement of one's anatomy, to describe things all turned around. For that state of disarray the expression should be ''ass frontward''."
[[Richard Lederer]], ''Amazing Words'' (2012), [https://books.google.com/books?id=tnxQCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT107 p. 107].</ref> or ''[[sophomore|sopho-more]]'' (an artificial Greek compound, lit. "wise-foolish").

The most common form of oxymoron involves an [[adjective]]–[[noun]] combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the [[semantics|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:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shakespeare |first1=William |author-link1=William Shakespeare |title=[[Romeo and Juliet]] |chapter=Act 1, Scene 1}}</ref>
{{poemquote|1=O brawling love! O loving hate!
  O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity!
  Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
  Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.}}

Other examples from English-language literature include: "hateful good" ([[Chaucer]], translating ''odibile bonum'')<ref>"Poverte is hate[fu]l good", glossed  ''Secundus philosophus: paupertas odibile bonum''; the saying is recorded by [[Vincent of Beauvais]] as attributed to [[Secundus the Silent]] (also referenced in [[Piers Plowman]]). 
[[Walter William Skeat]] (ed.), ''Notes on the Canterbury Tales'' (''Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer'' vol. 5, 1894), [https://books.google.com/books?id=3efWXPDaIiUC&pg=PA321 p. 321].</ref> "proud humility" ([[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]]),<ref>''[[Epithalamion]]'' (1595), of feminine virtue, echoed by Milton as "modest pride". Joshua Scodel, ''Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature'' (2009), [https://books.google.com/books?id=5UsxJfvHN3oC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267 p. 267].</ref> "darkness visible" ([[John Milton|Milton]]), "beggarly riches" ([[John Donne]]),<ref>''[[Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions]]'', (1624)</ref> "[[wikt:damn with faint praise|damn with faint praise]]" ([[Alexander Pope|Pope]]),<ref>''[[Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot]]'' (1734)</ref> "expressive silence" ([[James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|Thomson]], echoing [[Cicero]]'s {{langx|la|cum tacent clamant|lit=when they are silent, they cry out}}), 
"melancholy merriment" ([[Byron]]), "faith unfaithful", "falsely true" ([[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Tennyson]]),<ref>''[[Idylls of the King]]'': "And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."</ref> "conventionally unconventional", "tortuous spontaneity" ([[Henry James]])<ref>''[[The Lesson of the Master]]'' (1888)</ref> "delighted sorrow", "loyal treachery", and "scalding coolness" ([[Hemingway]]).<ref>Geneviève Hily-Mane
, ''Le style de Ernest Hemingway: la plume et le masque'' (1983), [https://books.google.com/books?id=N-1MbsaoWvwC&pg=PA169 p. 169].</ref>

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:
:"Voltaire [...] we might call, by an oxymoron which has plenty of truth in it, an 'Epicurean pessimist.'" (''[[Quarterly Review]]'' vol. 170 (1890), p. 289)
In this example, "Epicurean pessimist" would be recognized as an oxymoron in any case, as the core tenet of [[Epicureanism]] is [[Ataraxia|equanimity]] (which would preclude any sort of [[pessimism|pessimist outlook]]). However, the explicit advertisement of the use of oxymorons opened up a sliding scale of less than obvious construction, ending in the "[[#opinion oxymoron|opinion oxymoron]]s" such as "[[business ethics]]".

[[J. R. R. Tolkien]] interpreted his own surname as derived from the [[Low German]] equivalent of ''dull-keen'' (High German ''{{lang|de|[[wikt:tollkühn|toll-kühn]]}}'') which would be a literal equivalent of Greek ''oxy-moron''.<ref>see e.g. Adam Roberts, ^''The Riddles of The Hobbit'' (2013), p. 164f; J. R. Holmes in ''[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]]'' (2007),  [https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA53 p. 53]. It has been suggested that the actual etymology of the Tolkien surname is more likely from the village of Tolkynen in [[Kętrzyn|Rastenburg]], [[East Prussia]]. M. Mechow, ''Deutsche Familiennamen preussischer Herkunft'' (1994), p. 99.</ref>

=="Comical oxymoron"==
{{anchor|comical oxymoron}}{{anchor|opinion oxymoron}}"Comical oxymoron" is a humorous claim that something is an oxymoron. This is called an "opinion oxymoron" by Lederer (1990).<ref name="Lederer" /> The humor derives from implying that an assumption (which might otherwise be expected to be controversial or at least non-evident) 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".<ref>"Hosted for 33 years by the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., the show [''[[Firing Line (TV series)|Firing Line]]'' taped its final installment [... in 1999.] The show was spawned in the earnest mid-'60s, before popular culture swallowed up the middlebrow and 'educational TV' became a comical oxymoron." ''Time'' Volume 154, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSHgAAAAMAAJ Issues 18-27] (1999), p.  126.</ref> 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".<ref>According to Wills, Buckley has  "poisoned the general currency" of the word oxymoron by using it as just a "fancier word for 'contradiction'", when he said that "an intelligent liberal is an oxymoron".  Wills argues that use of the term "oxymoron" should remain reserved for the conscious use of contradiction to express something that is "surprisingly true". {{cite web |url=http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Wills-watching-7069 |title=Wills watching by Michael McDonald |publisher=The New Criterion |access-date=27 March 2012}} {{cite magazine |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/daredevil/307546/?single_page=true |title="Daredevil" - Garry Wills |magazine= [[The Atlantic]] |date=1 July 2009 |access-date=27 March 2012}}  However, the usage of "oxymoron" for "contradiction" is recorded by the [[OED]] from the year 1902 onward.</ref>

Examples popularized by comedian [[George Carlin]] in 1975 include "military intelligence" (a play on the lexical meanings of the term "intelligence", implying that "military" inherently excludes the presence of "intelligence") and "[[business ethics]]" (similarly implying that the mutual exclusion of the two terms is evident or commonly understood rather than the partisan [[Anti-corporate activism|anti-corporate]] position).<ref>"Saturday Night Live transcripts." Season 1, Episode 1. 11 October 1975. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75acarlin2.phtml.</ref>

Similarly, the term "civil war" is sometimes jokingly referred to as an "oxymoron" (punning on the lexical meanings of the word "civil").<ref>Discussed by L. Coltheart in Moira Gatens, [[Alison Mackinnon]] (eds.), ''Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship'' (1998), p. 131, but already alluded to in 1939 by John Dover Wilson in his edition of William Shakespeare's ''King Richard II'' (p. 193), in reference to the line  ''The King of Heaven forbid our lord the king / Should so with civil and uncivil arms Be rushed upon!'' :"A quibbling oxymoron: 'civil' refers to civil war; 'uncivil' = barbarous".</ref>

Other examples include "honest politician", "affordable caviar" (1993),<ref>"This opened up an oxymoron too dreadful to contemplate: affordable caviar" (''The Guardian'', 1993).</ref> "happily married" and "[[Microsoft Works]]" (2000).<ref>Lisa Marie Meier, ''A Treasury of Email Humor'', Volume 1 (2000), p. 45.</ref>

== Antonym pairs ==
{{further|Antonym}}
Listing of antonyms, such as "[[good and evil]]", "[[Size|great and small]]", etc., does not create oxymorons, as it is not implied that any given object has the two opposing properties simultaneously. In some languages, it is not necessary to place a conjunction like ''and'' between the two antonyms; such compounds (not necessarily of antonyms) are known as [[dvandva]]s (a term taken from [[Sanskrit grammar]]). For example, in Chinese, compounds like 男女 (man and woman, male and female, gender), 陰陽 ([[yin and yang]]), 善惡 (good and evil, morality) are used to indicate couples, ranges, or the trait that these are extremes of. The Italian ''[[pianoforte]]'' or ''[[fortepiano]]'' is an example from a Western language; the term is short for ''gravicembalo col piano e forte'', as it were "harpsichord with a range of different volumes", implying that it is possible to play both soft and loud (as well as intermediate) notes, not that the sound produced is somehow simultaneously "soft and loud".

== See also ==
{{Portal|Linguistics}}
{{Commons category|Oxymoron}}
* [[Colorless green ideas sleep furiously]]
* [[Contronym]]
* [[Meinong's jungle]]
* [[Paradox]]
* [[Performative contradiction]]
* [[Principle of contradiction]]
* [[Self-refuting idea]]
* [[Tautology (rhetoric)]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

* {{cite journal |doi=10.2307/1773004 |last=Shen |first=Yeshayahu |date=1987 |title=On the structure and understanding of poetic oxymoron |journal=Poetics Today |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=105–122 |jstor=1773004}}

==External links==
{{wiktionary}}

{{Figures of speech}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Humour]]
[[Category:Paradoxes]]
[[Category:Phrases]]
[[Category:Rhetorical techniques]]
[[Category:Semantics]]
[[Category:Word play]]
[[Category:Ambiguity]]