Conference thebay::joyoflex

Oxymorons have been discussed previously in this file (I think).  
Does anyone know in what note they are discussed?
Does a Concordance for this Note file exist? 

I don't understand why sensitive men is an oxymoron... am I missing something?

					andrew

A favorite of mine came from Bill Moran, who used to run the Module Test 
Programming Group.  Bill would always refer to any new project, method, 
business, etc. as an "insurmountable opportunity."  Really rather nice.

Larry

   Bought a new snow shovel the other day.

   It's made of "lightweight, heavy plastic."

   - John

Oxymoron is one itself meaning sharp-foolish (greek)

How about:
	Ice water
	Structured programming
	IBM compatable

-Capt'n Kurt*

 Does, "Contains salt, no preservatives" count as an oxymoron?

 Neil

One that's rather grim:  "Fallout shelter"

And of course, "Readable documentation"

       Reopening old subjects department:
       
       William Safire's column in the New York Times Magazine a couple
       of months ago covered oxymorons. He pointed out that one of
       the most commonly cited examples, "jumbo shrimp" is in fact
       NOT an oxymoron - it just sounds like one. "Tall midget"
       would be an oxymoron, but "shrimp" is the actual name of the
       animal in question, and not (in this case) used descriptively.
       Jumbo shrimp are properly described, since they are larger
       than normal shrimp.

    		Historic
    
    	       White Lodge
    
    	       Condominiums
    
    					andrew

	Justice Rehnquist

    Telephone answering machines that tell the caller that the called
    party isn't there right now...

For those who like chemistry:

Just as you can break down a sentence into its components, you can break down
a compound, such as oxymoron.  Just heat it sufficiently, and you get a 
laughing moron.

MoRoN O   -->  MoRoN + NO  
     2 2                 2


^
|
|
Is this what they call a compound sentence?  


I don't remember there being an Ro in the periodic table; if not, let's call
it Robinium.  I have one of those periodic tables in my kitchen, but it's a
monthly, so I don't see it very often.

-Rob

    
    Jeez - I've got some of that right here on my terminal stand, and
    a couple of years ago, DEC sold me another lump of ROBINium for
    home display......

Re .11:  "I am not here right now ..." on a telephone-answering 
machine: that's a SELF-REFERENTIAL oxymoron, or more likely a paradox.
Lots of discussion of that elsewhere.  I like it. 

Re .12:  Very good.  (But isn't laughing gas, nitrous oxide, something 
like NO?  I thought oxides had just one O.)  (-- Someone make some 
more chemical puns with this, please!)

Gabriel.

    re .14:
    
    nitrous oxide is  N O
                       2   
    
    sm

    Nitrous oxide is always good for a laugh...
    
    --- jerry

Re: chemistry

Wouldn't an oxymoron be something of the form:

    O=<moron>=O

Looking up the wonderful oxymoron "deliberate speed" (Supreme Court, 1955),
I found several in a verse by Francis Thompson:

	But with unhurrying chase,
	And unperturbed pace,
	Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
	They beat -- and a Voice beat
	More instant thn the Feet --
	"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

There's that famous opera, "Amyl and the Nitrate Visitors"

-- Perhaps chemistry needs its own topic...

    Military Intelligence

    "...was found missing."  [many news stories and some police blotters.]
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

    From an automobile bulletin,
    
    "... standard automatic ..."  
    
    referring to the fact that the automatic transmission is standard
    equipment.
    

Name of company:  Consolidated General



John M.

    clean colon
    
    	??
    

    Software Engineer...
    
    Happily Married...

    "Mini Legal Pad"

		Roman Catholic

    UNISYS :-)

    IMPUGN (To attack ....... to resist)
    

Re: < Note 118.29 by SPMFG1::CHARBONND >

>    UNISYS :-)
    
    	As someone who was contracted to SDC (part of Burroughs, now
    UNISYS) in a former (pre-DEC) life, I cannot agree with you more...
    
    						--Doug

    Superette.

    MLNOIS::HARBIG
                  Statement made in an internal seminar...
    
                    "It's factual but difficult to prove."
    
                       Max

    see 147.106: 
    
    Significant modicum

                Senate Intelligence Committee
                ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hmmm... I wonder what happened to the original note!?

    MLNOIS::HARBIG
    
                        Abyssal heights ?
    
                                         Max 

    
    ...Soft rock ...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

        A-men Steve.

    Business Ethics...
    
    Political Science?
    
    
    John B.

    How about:
    
    
    
    		expert opinion
    
    
    
    /Eric

    John

    I was iceskating down near Pennsauken NJ, across the river from
    Philadelphia, at a rink.
    
    I needed to use the john, and I happened to accidentally
    go in the wrong door, which led to a fairly nice locker room
    instead of a scuzzy public restroom.
    
    I didn't actually realize I was trespassing in the private
    lockerroom of the Philadelphia Flyers hocky team.
    
    So, not knowing I was trespassing, I felt fairly confident as I
    passed a man shaving as I made my way to a toilet stall.  he looked
    up at me and asked
    
    		May I help you ?
    
    As I was just entering the stall at that moment, my dry humorous
    side rose to the occasion and I responded
    
    		No thanks, I can do it myself.
    
    
    Well, he started making clear that I wasn't supposed to be in there.
    ("What I'm trying to 'convey' is that this is private property...")
    Somehow I remember he used the word 'convey'.
    
    By this time I was well-seated, and I apologized through the door.
    
    But the oxymoron is (using a loose definition):
    
    		May I help you ?
    
    How many times have you been asked that by someone that has absolutely
    no intention of assisting you whatever.  In fact they intend just
    the opposite -  to tell you to stop what your're doing or stop
    going where you're going.
    
    /Eric

    re: .45 

   >    ... -  to tell you to stop what your're doing or stop
   >    going where you're going. 

   But you said you didn't stop...  :-)

   Like the old saying, "Let me help you out:  Which way did you come in?"

   -- Sam

    rather than "can I help you?"
    
    when I worked at the campus food service (yecchkk) some time ago,
    my two favorites were:
    
    "what can I do you for?"
    and
    "it's been a business doing pleasure with you..."
    
    both of which left people with quizzical stares (if they noticed
    at all...people don't tend to listen to those waiting on them...)
    
    -jody
    

    Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled topic, already in progress...
    
    Heard on the PBS show 'Television': 
    "airless atmosphere"

    How 'bout:
    
    		"semi-boneless" ?
    
    Seems to me, it either has a bone or it doesn't!
    
    -pking

    Re .49 (pking):
    
    Maybe.  But in the following sentence, a good case might be made
    for the term.
    
    "In order to achieve maximum flexibility, a cat's skeleton is semi-
    boneless; it is quite cartiligenous."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

pretty ugly

a little big

	Foreseeable future....

    Infinitely small.
    

>	Foreseeable future....

        Jean Dixon is gonna get you...

  From a recent announcement by a competitor:

        Enhanced RISC

  JP

        In the news recently:

		High risk securities...

	Delia

    Some of the sandwiches available from the canteen at Solent Business 
    Park claim to contain...

    ...low fat cream cheese

    !!!

    G'day,
    Not sure if it's been put in before, and lacking time to check, I'll do
    it anyway..... ;-)
    
    
    
    
    from ALL-IN-1 land
    
    
    US English
    
    and
    
    UK British English
    
    djw
    

     From a car commercial heard on the radio this morning.

             Mike

>                              -< Metallic Silver >-
>

Since silver is metallic, surely this isn't an oxymoron, but rather a figment
of the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

But on the other foot, this sounds like the name of a car paint, where
silver is actually a shade of grey and metallic means finely flecked
with reflective material.  Both words are therefore incorrect used but
while the combination sounds ridiculous, it is essentially correct.

Stuart

     You are correct about "metallic silver". (Got to take a vacation!)

     It just sounded so strange at the time. Even though I had heard it
     many times.

     Maybe my note vs it's "oxymoron" count for something.  8^}

     Is there any significance to the spelling of oxymoron? Never mind. I
     don't want to start a rat-hole on top of everything else.

    Well, I like the sound of that rat hole ... I enjoy ulikely
    etymologies ...
    
    Maybe it went something like this ...
    
    Some poor guy with a terrible tooth ache went to the dentist
    but was terrified of being there, so the dentist gave him some
    nitrous (laughing gas) ... now as you probably know, dentists
    actually use a mixture of nitrous and oxygen.
    
    Now, as the guy was sitting there and nitrous was taking effect,
    the guy starts babbling away all kinds of nonsense including these
    words that we know today as oxymorons.  The more relaxed the guy became
    the more gibberish he spouted, making it impossible for the dentist
    to work in the guys mouth, so, to bring the guy more down to earth, he 
    called to his assistant to stop and turn the oxy(gen) more on.
    
    Well, the guy in the chair thought he heard the dentist say "Stop
    telling those oxymorons" and so the name for this particular type of
    gibberish stuck.
    
    Imagine, if the dentist had in fact said, "turn the nitrous down",
    the title of this note could have been Nitrodowns.
    
    (Remember the childhood joke with the punch line "He was a little more
    on" ?)

    As in : Now there's a piece of real fiction.
    
    Terry

    Ah, but did you *smile* when you read it ?  If so, then it was
    worth it ... if not ... oh well ... another pun-ishing folk etymology.

>    Ah, but did you *smile* when you read it ?  If so, then it was
>    worth it ... if not ... oh well ... another pun-ishing folk etymology.
    
    No, but I did groan out loud.  Does that count?
    
    --bonnie

    .64's right about the oxy- bit. The `oxy-' in both `oxymoron' and
    `oxygen' means (in Greek) bitter/acid.  Oxygen is the acid-maker;
    `oxymoron' is itself an oxymoron, meaning bitter-sweet.
    
    I don't know what's sweet about morons, except maybe their nature.
    This would tie in with the derivation of `cretin' - via French -
    from `Christian'.  But a cretin wasn't just sweet-natured: there
    was a theological reason for cretins being thought saintly when
    the word was first used - the theory was that morons just didn't 
    have the nous to be sinful, so once baptized they were guaranteed
    a place in Heaven.
    
    Oops, wrong note.
    
    b

    ps
    
    Of course, the derivation of `moron' may have nothing to do with the
    Greek. 

    According to Webster, _moron_ is from _moros_, foolish or dull.  I
    couldn't find any mention of sweetness anywhere.  _Oxy_ is not
    just bitter, it's also sharp or keen.  The compound _oxymoron_ is
    itself a Greek rhetorical term that means "pointedly foolish."
    
    It was imported into English in 1657, I would assume via one of
    the early grammar and rhetoric instruction books.
    
    --bonnie

    I blame it on my Greek master: he said `Read my lips, oxymoron
    means bittersweet' - tho' I shan't throw out the `sweet' idea
    until I see a decent Greek dictionary.
    
    b

    I will certainly take the word of almost any other dictionary over
    the word of Mr. Webster, especially concerning word history.
    
    --bonnie

    I don't have a vast amount of respect for some reference works, but I
    didn't know good ol' Noah was notably suspect.
    
    He was right about oxy-; I was taking a bit of a short-cut, going from
    the adjective `acid' (bitter/tart/pointed/acerbic/w.h.y) to the noun;
    Gk "oxys" isn't a noun (tho' - like most adjectives in most inflected
    languages - it _can_ be).
    
    b
    
    

    re: .73
    
    Oh, the real Noah isn't, but I was using the desktop collegiate
    thing, and I've founf that sometimes when it's condensing word
    histories and such it leaves out important steps and alternate
    meanings in the interest of being concise.  So while it gives the
    truth, sometimes it's a truth with holes.  
    
    Probably not fair to blame Mr. Webster for what editorial boards
    do in his name, either. 
    
    --bonnie

    Here's the last word from Liddell & Scott (biggest and best - possibly
    sole, in English libraries - dictionary of Ancient Greek):

    1	Nothing about `moros' meaning sweet

    2	But `moros', which usually means foolish or dull, _can_ be applied
    	to taste, with the meaning `flat, insipid'

    3	`oxus', an adjective (except as a noun meaning Wood Sorrel -
    	a bitter-leaved plant [I know, I ate a leaf once]), means
    	dull or foolish but can refer to bitterness of taste

    4	Nothing about `oxymoron' being a ready-made Greek word

    So `oxymoron' doesn't _mean_ `bittersweet', but like `bittersweet'
    it can be read as referring to mutually exclusive tastes.

    As for point (4), L&S may be referring strictly to Ancient Greek;
    some purists, fairly recently - about 19th c. I think - tried
    to protect and crystallize Ancient Greek in a form known as the
    `katharevousa' [= `pure', I think, or something to do with purity]. 
    Ironically, in their conservative zeal, they may have coined a new word.
    
    b

    b

re: .-2

Don't forget that the name Webster is in the public domain...ANY dictionary
may be called a _Webster's_. Look for the union label to be sure...

Perry

    What, specifically, constitutes the "union label" with regard to
    the various Webster's?
    
    					andrew

    "End Rathole"
    Trusted system
    Skilled manager
    Corporate planning
    
    Also one that just came over the net today, "American education"

    Soviet economy