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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:	The Joy of Lex
Notice:	A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:	THEBAY::SYSTEM

Created:	Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1192
Total number of notes:	42769

249.0. ""Single-word oxymorons"" by AKOV68::BOYAJIAN (Forever On Patrol) Fri Sep 26 1986 01:09

    Here's a game. Tonight, I was engaged in a discussion of
    compatibility problems when I was suddenly struck by an idea
    and said, "It seems to me that 'compatibility' has become a
    single-word oxymoron."
    
    Now, I'm not sure how exactly to define the concept of a
    single-word oxymoron (which may, in itself, be an oxymoron :-)),
    which is why I related the genesis of the idea to give an
    example. It seems more like an intuitive concept to me.
    Perhaps it's something that's a muchly desired goal, that seems
    destined never to be acheived, thus in a way contradicting
    itself.
    
    Now, the game is to see if you can come up with other words
    that might be considered single-word oxymorons in the same
    way as "compatibility".
    
    --- jerry

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
249.2	Why	DELNI::CANTOR	Dave Cantor	`Sat Sep 27 1986 14:56`	6
	Re .0 I don't understand. Why would 'compatibility' be a single-word oxymoron? Dave C.
249.3		BEING::POSTPISCHIL	Always mount a scratch monkey.	`Sat Sep 27 1986 20:14`	9
	Re .2: I think the idea is that the word has been somewhat overused by describing too many items as compatible with others when they are not completely compatible. Hence being told something is compatible is a warning of many incompatibilities that will hinder your work. -- edp
249.4	Literally	DELNI::CANTOR	Dave Cantor	`Sat Sep 27 1986 22:22`	21
	Re .3 Thanks. I hadn't ever noticed that before. It's a sad state of affairs. Well, I have an example: 'literally'. 'Literally' is often used ironically in newscasts, but you can't hear the surrounding quotation marks, so it sounds assinine. Joe Fubar, famous football player, literally burned the stadium up with his 90-yard run. Saying that Fubar burned the stadium up would have been emphatic enough, but the sportswriter thought that an adverb was needed, and 'figuratively' probably had too many syllables, or something. That wasn't an exact quotation, of course. I made it up, but it's based on something I actually heard, and then later heard Paul Harvey comment on. Dave C.
249.5	Antilogies	FDCV01::BEAIRSTO		`Mon Sep 29 1986 09:55`	10
	For several months there has been discussion in my alumni magazine about words that have two directly contradictory meanings. The moderator of the discussion has taken the liberty of naming them 'antilogies', and has had contributions in several languages. If you want I can find the back issues my kids haven't destroyed and photocopy them. No, I don't remember any offhand. \|-( Rob (whose name provoked an early interest in multiple meanings)
249.6	Antilogy	BAEDEV::RECKARD		`Mon Sep 29 1986 12:54`	10
	re: .5 (From paperback American Heritage Dictionary ... 's good enough) cleave� v. 1. To split or separate. cleave� v. 1. To adhere; cling. (They have two distinct Old English derivations.)
249.7	"sanction" is an antilogy	HUDSON::HAMER		`Mon Sep 29 1986 17:01`	1

249.8	one blue east, one blue west	RAYNAL::OSMAN	and silos to fill before I feep, and silos to fill before I feep	`Mon Sep 29 1986 18:35`	6
	Re 249.4: Another bad use of "literally" that is funny is "When I heard that, it literally blew my mind!!" /Eric
249.9	for more...	BUCKY::MPALMER		`Thu Oct 02 1986 10:56`	5
	re: .7, .6 see note 107 MP