SURELY THIS COMBINATION OF LETTERS – OXYMORON – has to be one of the weirdest words in our language. We may all know what it is: a figure of speech that uses contradictory ideas. But it’s still an odd word, and the examples of it are odd too because, well, it represents a contradiction in terms. The most common examples include things like jumbo shrimp, Great Depression, the same difference, deafening silence, only choice, and open secret. An oxymoron may be contained in speech, where it morphs into what’s known as a PARADOX, such as “A joke is an extremely serious issue” (Winston Churchill) or “No one goes to that restaurant anymore. It’s always too crowded.” (Yogi Berra) As I discovered just last week, one needn’t travel too far from home to encounter a dreaded oxymoron lurking nearby. I was walking with a friend when we passed a manhole cover over the local sewer system. Printed upon it were the words: SANITARY SEWER. What we have here might be deemed a municipal oxymoron. There is nothing sanitary about a sewer, a fact that I can attest to having peered into one recently while a city worker was inspecting it. It was crawling with roaches the size of mice. Anyone who has been in the service knows first hand of the well-known armed forces oxymoron: military intelligence. Then there’s today’s most infamous denial of reality: fake news. A related oxymoron might be … imaginary evidence. “But there it is, right there!” “I don’t see it.”
HenryM