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Joined: Oct 2000
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veteran
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veteran
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American beer
American culture
American education
American English
American geographers
American history If that wasn't a UK site, then at least American irony isn't an oxymoronic phrase! Mind you, then we'd have to get into a discussion of what irony means and so forth.. And here's a previous thread on that subject, kicked off by none other than you yourself WW: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=47618- Though I have to say that (IMH eavily biasedO) the thread lacks something in Britlish input   . I mean, referring at some juncture to Alanis Morrissette's "Isn't It Ironic" as providing examples of irony? Puh-leeeze!  Fisk
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a she wolf could just be a female wolf.
i have read, however, that she wolf, (as in she who weaned the twins romulus and romus(sp?) was actually a insulting term.. similar to bitch (a female dog, often used as a term to denigrade women) and most particularly use as a term for a prostiute.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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<<a she wolf could just be a [she wolf]>>
Hence, the question mark--a joke, an invitation to mild outrage.
But as to double meaning, the same remark was made in substance to "confirmed aetheist," which is a phrase confirmed an oxymoron by wit, not common meaning.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear IP: I suspect many an atheist was confirmed in the days when it was hazardpis
to your health to admit being an atheist. But in those days anybody who did not
accept the Church dogma was an atheist. I cannot uderstand any intelligent person
thinking the Universe and our World arose by chance. Chance can create very little,
since it tears down at approximately the same rate as it builds up. The fable about
a million monkeys typing for a million years rewriting all of Shakespeare is nonsense.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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Dear wwh:
I gather you're not arguing with me, since I didn't express any view one way or another about atheism. Since you mention it, though, and without expressing any view as to the existence or non-existence of God, the argument that the world did not arise by chance does not lead to the conclusion that it was created, particularly not through some external agency. Chance, or probability, I would say, is distinctly a part (oxymoron alert) of an *existing* universe. But that's just what I think.
As to all those monkeys, the fable implies that they would strike the keys randomly. If they did, it would at least be possible that they type up all of shakespeare --rather as attorneys sometimes do their briefs. It seems to me unlikely, however, that they *would* type randomly. And, incidentally, I've heard randomness is very difficult to generate.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Very few oxymorons actually derive their humour from the dictionary definitions of the words involved. It's the combination of the words together with their less common meanings which usually makes them funny.
From that standpoint a confirmed atheist is indeed oxymoronic.
I have always like the term "permanent prehostility" which is not an oxymoron but which is a term used in CIA double-speak to mean "peace".
Can anyone come up with an oxymoron which is also a tautology? "Criminal lawyer" is close but not close enough for the cigar.
- Pfranz
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Can anyone come up with an oxymoron which is also a tautology?
If I corrrectly understand the question, perhaps "oxymoronic tautology".
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