The word first made its appearance in the English language in , when an English cleric named Brother Reynolds made reference to "a bold and true oxymoron of Seneca. I need so much time for doing nothing that I have no time for work. Every great writer in history has authored at least one powerful oxymoron, some have offered scores of them. The matters I relate are true lies. Hence, he is the creator of true lies. As much as anybody, this otherwise little-known Georgia professor helped make oxymoron the household word it is today. Both words referred to collections of things, especially things that hold a particular fascination or interest. 
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Another example comes from the French writer Jean Genet: The matters I relate are true lies. As my collection of these kinds of quotes slowly grew from a few dozen to a few hundred, and then burgeoned from a few hundred to a few thousand, I needed oxymorronica word to describe them. Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things The honest thief, the tender murderer, The superstitious atheist.
Real knowledge is to oxymironica the extent of one's own ignorance.
Welcome to the World of Oxymoronica
Robert Browning, the original author of the famous less is more line it comes from his poem Andrea del Sartomanaged to insert three of them into the same poetic passage from Bishop Blougrams's Apology:. In that book he described the object of his interest this way: Clemens, My Husband Gabrilowitsch A guest should be permitted to graze, as it were, in the pastures of his host's kindness, left even to his own devices, like a rational being, and handsomely neglected.
Many will be familiar to you, for they come from some of the most famous oxymkronica and thinkers of all time. The word first made its appearance in the English language inwhen an English cleric named Brother Reynolds made reference to "a bold and true oxymoron of Seneca.
A new word invention is formally called a neologismand my dream is that oxymoronica will one day show up in a dictionary and given the meaning "a group or collection of oxymoronic and paradoxical quotations".
Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal.
I liked the concept, but couldn't immediately articulate why. Oxymoron The Oxford English Dictionary defines oxymoron this way: Some contained a classical oxymoron like silent shout and others a classical paradox like cruel only to be kind.
During the s and 70s, the word began to be used with increasing frequency, especially in college environments, but it was still an uncommon word. When Shakespeare tried to capture the complex range of emotions that young lovers feel when they leave one another's embrace, he did what oxympronica other great writers have done throughout history—he used an oxymoron to convey the idea.
Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths
Some of the most fascinating quotes oxymoroniva my interest because they had one special thing in common—they contained either a contradiction in terms or a contradiction in ideas: Rationally, a child cannot be a father, but one can propose in this figurative way that the nature of one's early life affects later ideas and attitudes. You will find many thousands more on this site. You are pf to savor some of the most fascinating, some of the wittiest, and some of the most perception-altering quotations ever assembled.
What Genet means, I believe, is that his creations are works of fiction, meaning they are not technically true. For almost all of us, it was the first time we had heard the word. Then, inWarren S. The Oymoronica Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics adds a fascinating dimension to our understanding of oxymoron when it links it to another important literary and rhetorical device: Very quickly, the entry on erotica took me to another familiar word with the same suffix: Every great writer in history has authored at least one powerful oxymoron, some have offered scores of them.
Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths - PDF Free Download
A term in rhetoric for bringing opposites together in a compact paradoxical word or phrase: As she explained the concept, I recall having a flashback to my high school days, when our coach, a wonderful man named Don Soli, had once said that getting rid of the bad apples on a sports team could dramatically improve oxymoroniva team.
Earlier we saw that it was possible to view an oxymoron as a compressed paradox. We delighted in the examples she cited: Wine is a bad thing. I loved the way Coach Oxymoronics characterized the phenomenon: Once done, though, the expression became unforgettable, a true classic line in the history of literature.
I tried the word out on a number of friends and it almost always brought a smile to their faces. I take some pleasure in knowing that obscure—but wonderful—oxymoronic quotations like these would continue to languish in obscurity were it not for a web site like this to honor them.
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