The Funny Side
Oxymoron Quiz
From "More on Oxymorons, Foolish Wisdom in Words and Pictures".
Oxymoron: two antithetical words, adj vs. noun. eg. Living Death (can be extended: They agreed to disagree)
Pleonasm: sort of the opposite of an oxymoron, the adj or adv agrees with the noun. eg. Wet Water (what else could water be?) Tautology: a pleonasm whose terms are joined by a copula. eg. At the center is the middle.
Bull: the linguistic name for such linguistic pearls of logic, enabling one to label examples of:
- self-contradiction (To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant).
- self reference (Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think).
- the obvious (Who died? I'm not sure, but I think it's the one in the hearse).
- "read the sentence twice and be amazed that it was written" (The sudden rise in temperature was responsible for the intolerable heat) (Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded)
Sort the following according to the above rules:
- The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. (W.C.Fields)
- You will always find something in the last place you look.
- He hadn't a single redeeming vice. (Oscar Wilde)
- Nothing succeeds like success. (Alexandre Dumas)
- New Innovation.
- In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. (Pliny the Elder)
- For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. (Abraham Lincoln)
- Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. (Samuel Goldwyn)
- To visually see.
- Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect. (Nicolas Chamfort)
- One effect of the better lighting is the improved visibility.
- He lived his life to the end.
- I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one. (James Gordon Bennett)
- She's genuinely bogus.
HINT: There are 2 examples of each category (not counting "Bull" but rather the subdivisions mentioned)
"Words are but a window on the word...."
