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An oxymoron (plurals: oxymorons and oxymora) is a figure of speech that Juxtaposition 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."A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis" OED
The term oxymoron is first recorded as Latinized Greek oxymōrum, in Maurus Servius Honoratus (c. AD 400);Honoratus on Aeneid 7.295, num capti potuere capi (in the voice of 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), p. 143. it is derived from the Ancient Greek word ὀξύς "sharp, keen, pointed" Retrieved 26 February 2013. and μωρός "dull, stupid, foolish";. Retrieved 26 February 2013. as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".. Retrieved 26 February 2013. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd." 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.
There are a number of single-word oxymorons built from "dependent morphemes" (i.e. no longer a productive English compound in English, but loaned as a compound from a different language), as with (lit. "with the hinder part before", compare hysteron proteron, "upside-down", "head over heels", "" etc.)"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), p. 107. or sophomore (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 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" (Chaucer, translating odibile bonum)"Poverte is hateful 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), p. 321. "proud humility" (Edmund Spenser), Epithalamion (1595), of feminine virtue, echoed by Milton as "modest pride". Joshua Scodel, Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature (2009), p. 267. "darkness visible" (John Milton), "beggarly riches" (John Donne), Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, (1624) "" (Alexander Pope), Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1734) "expressive silence" (Thomson, echoing Cicero's ), "melancholy merriment" (Byron), "faith unfaithful", "falsely true" (Tennyson), Idylls of the King: "And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." "conventionally unconventional", "tortuous spontaneity" (Henry James) The Lesson of the Master (1888) "delighted sorrow", "loyal treachery", and "scalding coolness" (Hemingway).Geneviève Hily-Mane , Le style de Ernest Hemingway: la plume et le masque (1983), p. 169.
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:
J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen (High German toll-kühn]]) which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron.see e.g. Adam Roberts, ^ The Riddles of The Hobbit (2013), p. 164f; J. R. Holmes in J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2007), p. 53. It has been suggested that the actual etymology of the Tolkien surname is more likely from the village of Tolkynen in Rastenburg, East Prussia. M. Mechow, Deutsche Familiennamen preussischer Herkunft (1994), p. 99.
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 position)."Saturday Night Live transcripts." Season 1, Episode 1. 11 October 1975. http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75acarlin2.phtml.
Similarly, the term "civil war" is sometimes jokingly referred to as an "oxymoron" (punning on the lexical meanings of the word "civil").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".
Other examples include "honest politician", "affordable caviar" (1993),"This opened up an oxymoron too dreadful to contemplate: affordable caviar" ( The Guardian, 1993). "happily married" and "Microsoft Works" (2000).Lisa Marie Meier, A Treasury of Email Humor, Volume 1 (2000), p. 45.
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