I recently received an unsolicited email in which there was a list of oxymorons (or oxymora) and it prompted me to share them with my ESL pupils at Smith’s School of English in Koenji part of the Smith’s School of English,pay by the month, franchise English conversation schools throughout Japan.
An oxymoron is a figure of speech which describes a phrase or combination of two words that produce an odd, seemingly opposing effect, as the two words appear to mean the opposite to each other.
They are used in various contexts eg. as puns, for literary purposes and often are simply grammatical errors – politicians are well known to make such mistakes.
Take a look at the following oxymora: act naturally, free love, same difference, cruel kindness, original copy, almost exactly, found missing, alone together, genuine imitation, pretty ugly, peace force, plastic glasses, definite possibility, thunderous silence, deafening silence, minor crisis, sweet sorrow, terribly pleased, only choice, real phony, ill health, constant variable, rolling stop, turn up missing, extinct life, jumbo shrimp, mournful optimist, loose tights, small crowd, even odds, working holiday, clearly misunderstood and exact estimate . Now aren’t they simple?
The unsolicited email asked the following questions. Do you understand them?
| 1. Is it good if a vacuum really sucks? 2. Why, is the third hand on a watch called the second hand? 3. If a word is misspelt in the dictionary, how would we ever know? 4. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? 5. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? 6. Why do “slow down” and “slow up” mean the same thing? 7. Why do “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing? 8. Why do “tug” boats push their barges? 9. Why do we sing “Take me out to the ball game” when we are already there? 10. Why are they called “stands” when they are made for sitting? 11. Why is it called “after dark” when it really is “after light”? 12. Doesn’t “expecting the unexpected” make the unexpected expected? 13. Why are “a wise man”and “a wise guy” opposites? 14. Why do “overlook” and “oversee” mean opposite things? 15. Why, is “phonics” not spelt the way it sounds? 16. If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it? 17. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting? 18. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? 19. If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right? 20. Why is bra singular and panties plural? 21 Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead? 22. Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase? 23. How come abbreviated is such a long word? 24. Why do we wash bath towels? Aren’t we clean when we use them? 25. Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle? 26. Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one? 27. Christmas – What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks? 28. Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? Ken Smith’s School of English Koenji
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