"Is that some sort of an idiot?" I asked when I heard the word oxymoron for the first time. "Or someone whose brain doesn't function properly because he's been deprived of oxygen?"
Sometimes, when we are confronted with new words, we try to guess what they might mean. However, if we are familiar with the root words that make up individual words, we can usually guess quite accurately.
Oxymoron is a Greek term derived from oxumoros (pointedly foolish): oxus (sharp or pointed) and moros (foolish). An oxymoron is figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms, as in the expression jumbo shrimp, or silent scream, or deafening silence.
"How can silence be deafening?"
You might ask? Well, that's what makes it an oxymoron. To give you an idea of how often we use oxymora (the plural of oxymoron) in our everyday language, here is a short story with one in every sentence. My next-door neighbour, a college professor called George, still lives with his mother and wears plastic glasses. Every morning, he goes for a jog with his girlfriend, who is an assistant supervisor at a nearby kindergarten. Or at least that is what he used to do until a minor disaster made him rethink this daily routine.
You see, another neighbour recently confronted George when he was returning from his morning jog and gave him a detailed summary of the number of houses in the street that had been broken into that week. Thinking that no uninvited guests would dare enter his house while his mother was there, he ignored his neighbour's warning to be more careful.
Upon entering his house, though, George found his mother in a highly depressed state. While she was sleeping, someone had entered the house through the back door and had stolen, among other things, an original copy of a priceless painting from the living room. They were left with only one choice; they had to call the police.
"What have you found missing, other than the painting?" Asked a police detective who arrived on the scene a short while later. "I can give you an exact estimate," said George's mother. "But it's an open secret that my son's girlfriend is not to be trusted." "But officer, it can't be my girlfriend," said George, "She's overseas on a working holiday this week."
"Then how did this get on the living room carpet," said his mother holding one of his girlfriend's favourite earrings in the palm of her hand. It was obviously time for George to find a new tradition as far as his morning exercise was concerned.
