Talk:oxymoron

Too encyclopedic. (yes, encyclopedic is a word)

Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia.

My two cents.

I'll boil all this blah down into a definition (a pair of defs, actually - the original one and the contemporary one). — Paul G 08:04, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A "non-contradictory oxymoron" ? Really? [1]

In the "Etymology" section, the definition of moros as meaning "stupid," with its reference to the Tufts definition of oxymoron as meaning "pointedly foolish," is wrong and misleading. Moros is Greek for "dull," just as oxy is Greek for "sharp." The obvious idea is that the two adjectives are in polar opposition to each other and cannot reaonably both be predicated of one subject. One knife, for example, cannot be both sharp and dull at the same time. So, oxymoron means "sharp dull," not "pointedly foolish." This illustrates its meaning as a self-contradiction. I would like to change the information in the "Etymology" section, if it meets with Wikipedia approval.Lestrade 23:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)LestradeReply

The Wikipedia article "Oxymoron," asserted that the word meant that two contradicting terms were combined to make a point. This seemed to be an effort to support the definition as "pointedly foolish." If anyone supports that definition, I request that they give an example of being "pointedly foolish."Lestrade 12:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)LestradeReply

There is no mistake. It is neither "wrong" nor "misleading" to use the phrase "pointedly foolish" in the definition. Want proof? Check out the "proof" that I laid out on the Wikipedia talk page for Oxymoron. There, I prove that one knife can indeed be both sharp and dull at the same time, and that "pointedly foolish" and "sharp dull" are both accurate translations for this "paradox with a point." Grolltech (talk) 21:07, 8 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

There is no direct connection between oxymoron and the angel Moroni who allegedly appeared to Joseph Smith, Jr..Lestrade 00:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)LestradeReply

In the audio file, the stress is on the first syllable, in contrast to the IPA. Which one is correct?

To my knowledge both are correct. It's a regional and dialectical difference. Neskaya 08:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Deleted the definition relating to Rush Limbaugh as violating Wikipedia's policy on libelous material relating to living persons. — This unsigned comment was added by 71.115.5.142 (talk) at 09:29, 27 November 2007 (EST).

You could've also deleted it on the grounds that it was bullshit. --BiT 21:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC) —This deleted comment has been restored by Grolltech (talk) 00:03, 16 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have deleted an anonymous pro-Limbaugh whine. I have no objection to people supporting the man. I just think they ought to take responsibility by signing their names to their opinions and their censorings.

-dlj. — This unsigned comment was added by David Lloyd-Jones (talk • contribs) at 02:14, 14 October 2015 (EST).

OK... um... @David Lloyd-Jones: I have a question... was that an example of an oxymoron that you just did there? Because you just left an unsigned comment and censored a signed comment that was absent of censorship. Well done! I see the paradox, but what's the point? I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. Ooh! Was that an oxymoron? Seriously, though, I've taken the liberty of signing the unsigned comments, restoring the deleted one, and refactoring the indenting—all in keeping with Wiktionary policies and/or guidelines. Please check out Help:Talk pages#A few tips when you get a moment. Grolltech (talk) 00:03, 16 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

Grolltech, I can imagine that I might have signed off with my frequent "-dlj." after my second or third signature on a single page. I think it is extremely unlikely that I left three, uh, "contributions" unsigned. I'm certainly careful to sign my stuff under almost all circumstances.

Given the extreme sourness with which some right-wingers react to even the mildest things I say, I rather think that erasing my signature on notes where I had criticized others for leaving unsigned venom around the joint was one of these thinking they were being funny.

Cheers,

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

Nothing of yours was erased. You initialed your post rather than signing it.

As for the "debate": in 2007 someone inserted a definition here as their only Wiktionary contribution- ever. It was a lame and silly personal attack on a public figure that has no place in a dictionary, and was a clear violation of our policies that require a neutral point of view. If someone hacked into one of your online accounts and posted statements that you disagree with, it would not be censorship to delete them. Likewise, removing the expression of an opinion (which by its context represented itself as Wiktionary's opinion) that Wiktionary does not and cannot hold is not censorship.

Wiktionary's entry talk pages are for discussing the entries as dictionary entries, not for expressing political opinions. BiT's characterization of the content that was removed wasn't that far off the mark if you look at it as a dictionary definition. Don't get me wrong: I personally loathe Rush Limbaugh and all that he stands for- but this isn't the place for partisanship in either direction. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:12, 2 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

1. • A famous example is Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, ll. 63-4:

     No light, but rather darkness visible

     Serv'd only to discover sights of woe

   • Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1. Scene 1, in which Romeo utters nine oxymora in just six lines of soliloquy:

     Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

     O anything, from nothing first create,

     O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!

     Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms,

     Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,

     Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

     This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

   • 1892, Henry James, The Lesson of the Master.

     Above all she was natural—that was indubitable now—more natural than he had supposed at first, perhaps on account of her aesthetic drapery, which was conventionally unconventional, suggesting a tortuous spontaneity.

To say that oxymoron means contradiction in terms, or indeed contradiction of any kind, is not merely incorrect. It is very precisely incorrect. It misses the point by firing in the opposite direction.

An oxymoron constructs a new and non-contradictory meaning out of contradictory elements. The essence of the word is its non-contradictoriality.

It's easy to keep this straight in your mind with the fairly true notion "oxymoron is to contradiction as synthesis is to antithesis." If you wanted to tweak the accuracy a little, you might say that oxymorons are made out of pairs of antitheses, but you'd lose the Hegelian oom-pah-pah of the original.

-dlj. — This unsigned comment was added by David Lloyd-Jones (talk • contribs) at 02:14, 14 October 2015 (EST).

You are welcome to your own philosophical views on what constitutes an oxymoron, but that has nothing to do with a dictionary definition, which should cleave to how a word is in fact used. Note that Wiktionary is by no means alone in this; the Oxford English Dictionary has two senses, calls both "contradiction"s, and in fact uses the very phrase "contradiction in terms" for its second definition. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:59, 14 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

It is a little bit disappointing to be told that the OED is part of the mob who cannot tell a definition from a solecism.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 09:26, 9 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Googling around I can find nothing to support Metaknowledge's claim above, and am trying to write to him/her/it to find out just which part of the large Oxford empire supports his claim.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 09:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Of course an oxymoron is a contradiction in terms- that's what makes it an oxymoron. In the original sense, that's necessary, but not sufficient: an oxymoron is superficially a contradiction in terms but makes sense at a deeper level. The other sense, as in George Carlin's famous crack about "military intelligence", just focuses on the contradiction part. It may not be true to the original definition, but, then, glad originally meant "shiny" and nice meant stupid or ignorant. Right or wrong, language changes- and you can't stop it. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:28, 2 June 2019 (UTC)Reply