Oxymoron is characterized by the intentional use of contradiction to create a stylistic effect. From a psychological point of view, an oxymoron is a way to resolve an inexplicable situation.

Examples

• An oxymoron is often used in the titles of prose literary works (“Hot Snow”, “Living Corpse”, “Dead Souls”, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, “Endless Dead End”, “End of Eternity”), films (“Ordinary Miracle”, “With Eyes Wide Shut", "True Lies", "Little Giant of Big Sex", "There Was a War Tomorrow", "Bad Good Man", "Adult Children", "Dead Poets Society", "Back to the Future"), musical groups ( Led Zeppelin - "lead airship", Blind Guardian - "blind guard", Orgy of the Righteous), video games (LittleBigPlanet).
• Oxymorons are used to describe objects that combine opposite qualities: "a courageous woman", "a feminine boy".
• In the novel Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco's characters fantasize about a "university of comparative irrelevance" with a chair of oxymorology. As subjects of study of this department, the author cites "urban studies of nomadic tribes", "folk oligarchy", "innovative traditions", "dialectics of tautology", etc.
• In the name of the holiday "Old New Year".
• Oxymorons are often used in advertising and not always in good faith. For example, the expression "investment in the forex market" is an example of a professional oxymoron, since the private foreign exchange market by its nature cannot be an object of investment, only speculation (in the economic literature there is often an attempt to separate speculation and investment; however, there is no consensus. For more details, see article "investment").
• The very word "oxymoron" (lit. "witty-stupid") is an oxymoron. (See Recursion).

It is necessary to distinguish between oxymorons and stylistic combinations of words characterizing different qualities: for example, the phrase “sweet bitterness” is an oxymoron, and “poisonous honey”, “found loss”, “sweet torment” are stylistic combinations.

see also

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Notes

Links

• in the Literary Encyclopedia
• E. Repin, N. Repina.
• Nikolaev A. I. // Nikolaev A. I. Fundamentals of literary criticism: tutorial for students of philological specialties. - Ivanovo: LISTOS, 2011. - S. 140-147.

figures trails

An excerpt describing an oxymoron

“Many, many,” answered Rostov. - Yes, what are you going to do here? he added. Holiday, huh?
“The old men have gathered, on a worldly matter,” answered the peasant, moving away from him.
At this time, two women and a man in a white hat appeared on the road from the manor house, walking towards the officers.
- In my pink, mind not beating! said Ilyin, noticing Dunyasha resolutely advancing towards him.
Ours will be! Lavrushka said with a wink.
- What, my beauty, do you need? - said Ilyin, smiling.
- The princess was ordered to find out what regiment you are and your names?
- This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your obedient servant.
- Be ... se ... e ... du ... shka! sang the drunk peasant, smiling happily and looking at Ilyin, who was talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych approached Rostov, taking off his hat from a distance.
“I dare to disturb, your honor,” he said with deference, but with relative disdain for the youth of this officer, and putting his hand in his bosom. “My lady, the daughter of General-in-Chief Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, who died this fifteenth day, being in difficulty on the occasion of the ignorance of these persons,” he pointed to the peasants, “asks you to come in ... if you don’t mind,” Alpatych said with a sad smile, “move off a few, otherwise it’s not so convenient when ... - Alpatych pointed to two men who were rushing around him from behind, like horseflies near a horse.
- Ah! .. Alpatych ... Huh? Yakov Alpatych!.. Important! sorry for Christ. Important! Eh? .. - the men said, smiling joyfully at him. Rostov looked at the drunken old men and smiled.
“Or maybe that’s a consolation to Your Excellency?” - said Yakov Alpatych with a sedate look, pointing at the old people with his hand not in his bosom.
“No, there is little consolation here,” said Rostov, and drove off. - What's the matter? - he asked.
“I dare to report to your excellency that the rude people here do not want to let the lady out of the estate and threaten to disown the horses, so that in the morning everything is packed and her excellency cannot leave.
- Can't be! cried Rostov.
“I have the honor to report to you the real truth,” Alpatych repeated.
Rostov got off the horse and, handing it over to the orderly, went with Alpatych to the house, asking him about the details of the case. Indeed, yesterday’s offer of bread by the princess to the peasants, her explanation with Dron and with the gathering spoiled the matter so much that Dron finally handed over the keys, joined the peasants and did not appear at the request of Alpatych, and that in the morning, when the princess ordered to lay the mortgage in order to go, the peasants came out in a large crowd to the barn and sent to say that they would not let the princess out of the village, that there was an order not to be taken out, and they would unharness the horses. Alpatych went out to them, advising them, but they answered him (Karp spoke the most; Dron did not show up from the crowd) that the princess could not be released, that there was an order for that; but that let the princess remain, and they will serve her as before and obey her in everything.
At that moment, when Rostov and Ilyin galloped along the road, Princess Mary, despite the dissuades of Alpatych, the nanny and the girls, ordered to mortgage and wanted to go; but, seeing the galloping cavalrymen, they took them for the French, the coachmen fled, and the wailing of women arose in the house.
- Father! native father! God has sent you, - tender voices said, while Rostov passed through the hall.
Princess Mary, lost and powerless, sat in the hall, while Rostov was brought in to her. She did not understand who he was, and why he was, and what would happen to her. Seeing his Russian face, and recognizing him as a man of her circle by his entrance and the first spoken words, she looked at him with her deep and radiant gaze and began to speak in a voice that broke and trembled with excitement. Rostov immediately imagined something romantic in this meeting. “Defenseless, heartbroken girl, alone, left to the mercy of rude, rebellious men! And what a strange fate pushed me here! thought Rostov, listening to her and looking at her. - And what meekness, nobility in her features and expression! he thought as he listened to her timid story.

It's an oxymoron, it's an oxymoron a stylistic figure, consisting in a combination of incongruous in meaning; contradictory unity, a kind of paradox. Oxymoron is also considered a kind of antithesis, however, antithesis is the opposition of concepts and phenomena, their fundamental distinction, i.e. its function is in fact the opposite of that of the Oxymoron. An oxymoron is often used in poetry.

Examples of using Oxymoron:

A.S. Pushkin - “my sadness is light” (“On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night ...”, 1829), “I love the lush nature of withering” (“Autumn”, 1833), A.A. Akhmatova - “spring autumn "(" Unprecedented autumn built a high dome ... ", 1922)," So ceremonially naked "(" without a hero, 1940-62). Oxymoron often become titles: “English Spaniard” (1613) by M. Cervantes, “ Dead Souls"(1842) by N.V. Gogol, "Leaves of Grass" (1855) by W. Whitman, "The Living Corpse" (1900) by L.N. Tolstoy. An oxymoronic genre designation "a poem in prose". For the New Age, Oxymoron is a "novel in verse", as well as a "story in verse", which arose in Russia in the 18th century and became the most important genre for romantics. An oxymoron may arise unintentionally, as a stylistic sloppiness. In M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Dream” (1841), “a familiar corpse” is, in fact, an Oxymoron that would look comical if it were not for the deep tragedy of the general tone and the atmosphere characteristic of sleep, blurring the boundaries between imagination and reality, life and death.

Synesthesia is close to the oxymoron- combining impressions received by different senses. In Russia, V.A. Zhukovsky began to practice it widely. The elegy “Evening” (1806) is indicative: “Oh, the quiet skies of the pensive luminaries ... How pale you have gilded the shore!” (actually oxymoronic synesthesia). In B.L. Pasternak, the sun “covered the neighboring forest with hot ocher ...” (“August”, 1953) is a metaphorical synesthesia. Of the prose writers, VV Nabokov showed great interest in synesthesia.

0 After in the previous article, I talked about such a funny word as Axemora, the meaning and origin of the term, it is time to talk in more detail about the ancestor of this jargon. On our website, you can find many answers to your questions on such topics, like street slang, English slang, prison slang and more. So don't forget to bookmark us. Well, today, as I said above, we will talk about the "founder" of Axemor, the word Oxymoron, which means you can read a little later.
However, before I continue, I would like to recommend you a couple more interesting publications on science and education. For example, what does Morpheus mean, what is Prerogative, how to understand the word Leviathan, who are the Illuminati, etc.
So let's continue what does oxymoron mean? This term came into Russian from German " Oxymoron", which was borrowed from the ancient Greek "ὀξύ-μωρον", and literally translates as "sharp stupidity".

Oxymoron- the word denotes an extremely absurd expression, consisting of concepts that contradict each other

Oxymoron- this is a combination of two words, often opposite in meaning, for example "hot as ice"

Sometimes some not very literate users write this term as " axemoron", which is fundamentally wrong. Some wonder what an Oxymoron is, and why was it invented at all?

Usually an oxymoron is used when they want to draw the reader's attention to some detail. For example, the expression "living corpse", or "cold rage" makes some people fall into a stupor. They ask the question, is this even possible? For others, such a statement may cause unexpected and strange associations, and for some it may cause a smile.

In what situations is Oxymoron usually used? Usually, its use is justified in those cases where it is necessary to draw attention to your person or work in a few words. Therefore, similar phrases can be found in the titles of various books, films and even theatrical performances.

After your mind stumbles upon such dizzying turns of speech, the brain begins to actively engage in work, trying to imagine the unimaginable, while the right hemisphere, which in humans is responsible for creativity, turns on. But it is precisely for this that filmmakers or writers come up with such " screaming" titles to get you interested in their work.

In addition, such figurative thinking is inherent in poets; it is precisely such catchy phrases that give special piquancy to their creations.

Examples of Oxymoron in verse

Poets, using oxymorons in their works, try to ensure that two words lose their original meaning, and as a result create something unusual, completely new. This means that a person should have an urgent need to read this work, watch a film, and read and reread poetry without end and edge. A great help for any creator, right?

Sometimes the word Oxymoron is used to exaggerate, for example " kind cruelty"or" loud silence. "It has long been popular among the people catchphrase- "brevity is the soul of wit". Namely, this feature is inherent in Oxymoron, since it always consists of two words, there is nowhere to be shorter.
In any work, such a phrase gives a certain special bulge, has a certain effect of surprise. Sometimes a logical paradox arises before the readers of a poem, and everyone is free to draw only their own conclusions for themselves.

By the way, have you heard of such a phrase as " tragicomedy"? I'm sure you've heard that it clearly traces the trace of an oxymoron because the word contradicts itself. In general, such expressions are usually created by people with a creative "vein", therefore, such words are usually used by stylists, fashionistas, intellectuals, painters and similar fraternity.

Among people who work in the field of creating advertising, an oxymoron is in great demand, because they are very easy to remember, and they are so eaten into the mind of an individual that he cannot “get rid of” it for weeks.
By the way, did you know that even builders use an oxymoron without even knowing it, for example "liquid nails", there is a funny liquid that is used for tricks and jokes, the so-called " dry water, developed in the USA in 2004.

Do you want more related examples? oxymoron? I have them, moreover, at the end of the article I will make a large selection. Now let's take a retrospective and try to find these funny expressions in the past.
There were a lot of such phrases in the USSR, although for the most part they did not cause discomfort to anyone, for example, "public property." Today, we are all used to the fact that property can be exclusively personal, but the Soviets were different. After all, if we consider this expression more broadly, we will find out that such concepts as “separation”, “separation” are excellent for the word “property”, and the public is indivisible. There is an obvious contradiction here.

Many citizens who were born in the USSR probably remember the phrase " honorable duty", which modern teenagers simply do not fit in the head. A little later, in the midst of democracy, an established concept arose as "unpaid wages", but the word payment implies an already accomplished action.

Many books use an oxymoron in their titles, here are some interesting examples:

1. "Honest Thief" Bleek
2. "Blinding Darkness" Koestler
3. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" Kundera
4. "Old New Year" Fanailova
5. "Endless dead end" Galkovsky
6. "Hot snow" Bondarev
7. "Living relics" Turgenev
8. "Honest Thief" Dostoevsky
9. "Young lady-peasant" Pushkin
10. "Rich beggar" Martynov
11. "Up the stairs leading down" Kaufman
12. "Eloquent Silence" Brown
13. "End of Eternity" Asimov
14. "Ordinary Miracle" Schwartz
15. "Optimistic Tragedy" Wisniewski
16. "Living corpse" Tolstoy
17. "Dead Souls" Gogol
18. "My adult childhood" Gurchenko

In some poems, poets use contradictory and even paradoxical phrases to enhance the effect.

Well, now, I want to offer you examples of Oxymorons that I really liked, and I decided to collect them in one place:

• outspoken politics
• swiss refugee
• unstoppable quiet
• bitter happiness
• amorphous activist
• happy pessimist
• affectionate scoundrel
• powerful impotence
• wavy surface
• complex simplicity
• screaming silence
• fun to be sad
• silent cry
• married bachelor
• little giant
• infinite limit
• unanimous disagreement
• voluntary violence
• sincere liar
• summer coat
• true lie
• original copies
• dull shine
• ringing silence
• virtual reality
• sweet tears
• sweet bitterness
• old New Year
• liquid Nails
• sad joy
• scary beautiful
• honest politician
• hazy clarity
• soft hardness
• stubborn consent
• public secret
• clumsy grace
• sworn friend
• long moment
• chilling ardor
• falling up
• fiery ice
• nimble muddler
• educated boor
• benevolent enemy
• drink to health
• impudent modesty
• possessed

Hello website readers! AT recent times the word "oxymoron" has gained popularity and widespread use in the vast world wide web.

The unusual sound evokes thoughts of fantasy novels and movies, and gives the impression that the word appeared quite recently. After all, indeed, Internet users, especially the inhabitants of forums and social networks, simply love to come up with unusual words.

• When one hears the word Oxymoron, one imagines either some cruel ruler from a fictional fantasy world, or an ominous, gloomy tower on a planet lost in deep space, in which a beautiful alien princess languishes, waiting to be rescued by the valiant Luke Cywalker.
• When asked what an oxymoron is, someone answered: "This is one of the towers in Moscow City, that's what it's called."
• Another objected to this: “Yes, what a tower,“ Oxxxymiron ”is the name of a popular domestic rock band.”

In fact, the term Oxymoron has long been known in academic linguistics and denotes a phraseological phrase consisting of words with the opposite meaning, and one of the words is used in a metaphorical sense.

In fiction, this stylistic turn has been actively used since time immemorial.

In general, the combination of words with conflicting meanings merges into a kind of idiom with an extremely bright and "sharp" meaning.

• "Happy Sadness"
• "Hot Ice Cream"
• "True Lies".

The specific sound of the word Oxymoron suggests the Greek origin of the term, and this is true. Literally, oxymoron translates from Greek as "sharp, piercing stupidity".

Historians believe that this term first appeared in Ancient Greece, in ancient literature.

Pronunciation, spelling and how to stress

The rules of the Russian language allow quite free spelling and pronunciation of the term.

Below are some of them:

• Oxymoron. With stress on the second syllable (Greek version).
• Oxy'moron.
• Oxymoron. With stress on the last syllable. (Russian version).
• Oxymoron.

We figured out the meanings and terminology, now you can delve a little into the scope of application - why, why, what benefits can be gained.

Examples from fiction and life

• A photo of a road sign with a crossed-out silhouette of a dog “No urinating”, on a pole of which a small dog lifted its leg in a small need.
• A prohibitory sign depicting a dove crossed with an oblique red stripe, on which the bird of peace comfortably perched.
• A car parked directly under a No Parking sign.

This kind of pictures get a huge number of likes and shares, bringing the authors enormous popularity in social media.

In Russian literature (and Soviet literature too), oxymoron paradoxes can often be found both in the titles and in the content of literary works.

"Living Dead"

Oxymoron "living corpse" is widely known from the play by Leo Tolstoy, written in 1900, but a century earlier, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin used the phrase in the cult poem "Poltava".

In the eighties of the twentieth century, a whole series of horror films "The Living Dead" in various variations was popular.

What is a zombie if not a living corpse?

If we analyze the reasons for such a frequent use of oxymorons in the names works of art From a marketing point of view, everything is quite clear and logical.

• The paradoxical, contradictory and sharp, piercing sound of oxymorons becomes a powerful magnet that attracts the attention of readers, viewers, and listeners.
• Many people will want to get acquainted with a work that has an unusual and ambiguous sound, if only out of pure curiosity. And this means that they will buy a book, listen to a song, watch a movie.

Thus, the oxymoron paradox in the experienced hands of professional marketers turns into an effective tool for promoting works of art on the market and popularizing copyright brands.

Take, for example, the title of the movie "Back to the Future", which, with its contradictory nature, attracts attention and arouses the desire to go to the cinema or buy a disc, download the video and see what it is about.

In this case, the film really turned out to be very good, successful. But often a bright oxymoron in the title is to make popularity of completely dataless and worthless information products, after consumption of which it becomes painfully insulting for the wasted time and money.

Oxymoron in foreign literature

It is impossible to ignore and not mentioned in connection with the topic of discussion, George Orwell's novel "1984" - this is the real storehouse of oxymorons.

• "Freedom is slavery."
• "Ignorance is power."
• "War is peace."

And here is an example of an oxymoron that made a rock band famous even before the public had time to understand and love rather difficult music in the format of hard rock, when this style was not yet popular.

"Lead Airship"

Can a lead zeppelin fly?

But Led Zeppelin took off, so much so that it thundered all over the world and firmly entered the list of the best of the best musical groups of all time.

And an important role in this brilliant career of rock musicians was played by a well-chosen oxymoron in the title.

Many people listened to the hard rock of this group solely under the impression of the “sharp” and paradoxical name of the group, although later they were unable to “permeate” this kind of creativity, because they “were not yet mature enough for such music,” as Dunno from the Sunny City put it.

Nevertheless, the result was achieved - the guys earned millions of dollars, and Led Zeppelin tracks are forever inscribed in the TOP 100 best songs of the twentieth century.

That's what this most notorious "Oxymoron in simple words" is.

Oxymorons at home

Try to tell your neighbor that he used Oxymoron in the conversation, right? kind person surprised, frightened and even offended: “How dare you! So that I say such words, and even in front of children.

Well, what can you say about such “local idiomatic expressions” that we hear from each other all the time.

• "Well no".
• "Terrible kind."
• "Terrifyingly beautiful."
• "Insanely happy."

These are all typical examples of oxymorons often used in interpersonal communication on a daily basis.

And after all, no one is frightened and surprised at what complex grammatical phrases we know.

To indicate the compatibility of concepts that are not compatible with each other, a special term is used in Russian - "oxymoron", Wikipedia characterizes it as a stylistic figure in which words are used together that have opposite meaning. Usually, such a technique helps to make the literary text more saturated. Each word used in such constructions becomes more voluminous and easily kindles bold and unexpected images in the reader's imagination.

If we turn to the history of the emergence of the term, it is worth noting that this concept came to us from ancient Greek and translates as "sharp stupidity". The stress in the word oxymoron is placed on the second or last syllable. Also, in one of the variants of its spelling, instead of the letter "u", there may be the letter "i". Therefore, then this word will be written and read as "oxymoron". In addition, in the oxymoron itself, the definition of the term implies a certain paradox inherent in its meaning to combine the incompatible.

Use of the term in various fields

Quite often, oxymorons are found in advertising., as they are quite an effective tool that can attract attention. Usually they work due to their brightness and surprise, so it becomes interesting for people to find out what kind of product they want to offer under this or that original name or slogan. Also an important characteristic for the use of oxymorons in advertising is their memorability.

Besides, oxymorons are characteristic of book titles. A good example is the same "Dead Souls" or, for example, "Honest Thief", "End of Eternity", "Optimistic Tragedy". In addition, this stylistic figure is found in the titles of films ("An Ordinary Miracle", "Tomorrow Was a War", "Back to the Future"), as well as in poems, where it is a bright, expressive trope.

Their scope may be the desire of the author of a literary work to make his creation more dramatic and heated. This is where “deafening silence”, “cruel kindness” and other similar phrases originate. If for the brightness of the image the creator needs to combine in one concept two qualities that are mutually exclusive, then during such combinations the following expressions are obtained: “feminine boy”, “courageous woman”, etc.

Examples of oxymorons in literary works

In Russian, authors usually purposefully use this trope, trying in a similar way to enhance the stylistic effect of speech. In this case, oxymorons often become bright, and most importantly, unhackneyed phrases that allow you to “revive” the text, make it more emotional and interesting.

The following are illustrative examples:

• add minus;
• terrarium of friends;
• fried ice cream;
• dry water.

Oxymorons in book titles

Often, writers use oxymorons in the title of books to immediately grab the reader's attention, as well as arouse his interest and imagination with a literary word. It is likely that it is a well-chosen title that will prompt a person to pick up a book and read it, for example:

• "Living relics" I. Turgenev;
• "Honest Thief" F. Dostoevsky;
• "Rich beggar" L. Martynov;
• "Optimistic tragedy" V. Vishnevsky;
• "Endless dead end" D. Galkovsky.

Don't Miss: An Interpretation of a Literary Technique, Examples of Exaggeration.

Use of oxymorons in poetry

It is also worth noting that oxymorons are a fairly common trope among satirists, but, in addition, it is also found in other genres. fiction. Often this stylistic figure can be seen in poems, for example:

Look, she's happy to be sad

Such smartly naked.

"Tsarskoye Selo statue"

Toy sad joy that I stayed alive?

S. Yesenin "Soviet Russia"

Use of oxymorons in prose

Repeatedly oxymorons were used by writers and in prose works. Especially in this regard, it is worth noting science fiction authors who use a combination of the incompatible in building their alternative or utopian realities. Here, first of all, it is worth highlighting J. Orwell, who used this technique to create slogans in, perhaps, his most famous work. - "1984":

War - this is the world.

freedom - this is slavery.

Ignorance - strength.

With just a few precise strokes, Orwell managed to show all the imperfection of the utopian world that he built in his work. Indeed, for readers, the concepts used in the last example are mutually exclusive.

Consequently, oxymorons can be found in almost any literary genre. They are used in completely different areas, from literature and cinema to advertising and the media. But in all these cases, the text becomes more vivid and memorable. Actually, this is the essence of such a mysterious, mysterious word.