Are you, like me, tickled by oxymorons?
Oxymoron: “a figure of
speech in which apparently contradictory terms
appear in conjunction.”
There are a few more of the long-used oxymorons we no longer feel, even as
a hint of a tickle:
Same difference
Old news
Only choice
Adult children
Open secret
Working vacation
Minor crisis
The very title of this post has a tinge of oxymoronic
flavor.
"Oxymoron" is itself an oxymoron because its
Greek roots combine "oxys" (sharp) and "mōros" (dull),
meaning "sharply dull" or "pointed foolishness". This
wordplay is a fitting example of its own definition, which describes a figure
of speech that pairs contradictory terms to create a new, more nuanced
meaning.
Oxymorons are effective in fiction only if they are newly
minted. Those are jarring in the way oxymorons are meant to be. The above
listed have been around for so long that they no longer evoke that space
between two opposites, and wake up the sense of questioning our grasp on
reality.
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