Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. An oxymoron is a joke, right?

Q. An oxymoron is a joke, right?

A. So some columnists would have you believe.

Evidently one of them found "oxymoron" in a dictionary and, instead of reading the whole definition, decided what the word should mean.

He or she got part of it right: an oxymoron is a contradiction in terms. The Greek roots of the word mean "sharp dullness." We have since had hundreds of allegedly humorous columns written in which alleged oxymorons, such as military intelligence and Christian compassion, are exposed. The joke is in the claim that these terms are composed of mutually exclusive parts, for example that no intelligence exists in the military, and so forth.

Trolling for oxymorons, columnists did turn up a few accidental contradictions of the sort that are bound to turn up in bureaucratic documents. But of course none of this has anything to do with what an oxymoron was originally.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that uses contradictory terms. For example, in writing about someone who gets his or her tongue stuck to a pipe in the winter, one might use the expression "searing cold." Since "searing" is an effect of extreme heat, this is a contradiction in terms. The point of this figure is that the sensation of extreme heat is very similar to the sensation of extreme cold.

A person not reconciled to retirement might be "working hard at being idle." A number of people decorate their homes in order to produce an appearance that might be called "studied casualness."

Composing this figure requires careful thought and genuine insight if the result is not to be nonsense. Many accidental oxymorons occur because formerly useful words have now lost their meanings: "a big, fine (something)" is no longer an oxymoron because so few people recall that "big" and "fine" are at odds.

"deafening silence": now a cliché, but once a striking oxymoron comparing the sensation of silence with the deafness induced by a loud noise.
"arid ocean": an oxymoron that might express the frustration of being surrounded by water that is undrinkable
"terribly happy": an unconscious oxymoron by someone who has forgot what "terribly" really means.