This may well have been done before, but there seem to be a lot of new members (myself included!) who may not have seen it. Howzabout coming up with a list of oxymorons?

Some obvious ones:

Religious war
Confirmed atheist
Jumbo shrimp

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.

Here's an oxymoron site:

http://www.specsci.com/donspage/htmldocs/oxymoron.htm

A good one from the above site I posted:

Tight slacks

Here's another site that proclaims its being the largest online oxymoron site:

http://www.oxymoronlist.com/

Here's one from the above site (which has certainly questionable oxymorons, but this won't ain't):

thunderous silence

And a final link:

http://pages.city2000.net/~mking/oxy.htm

And a final oxymoron from that link:

"Happy Monday"

Religious war
Confirmed atheist


I'm really tired these days. How are these oxymorons?

k

I wouldn't call confirmed atheist and religious war oxymorons.

Just my opinion,
WW

Is there such a thing as a "criminal lawyer" and, if so, does it really narrow down the search space?


k

There are those (not including me) who might say "criminal lawyer" is a tautology.

I wouldn't call confirmed atheist and religious war oxymorons

If confirmation is taken in the religious sense, the former is indeed an oxymoron, and also a pun.

Religious war isn't necessarily an oxymoron - in fact, practically every religion subscribes to fighting the "good" fight in some form or another. OK, a fight that is more spiritual than physical may be meant, but waddya expect? Reason overruling gut reaction?

Here's a previous oxymoron thread, courtesy of wow:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=57328

It often strikes me that oxymorons and paradoxes should be meaningless, but quite often come across meaningful, and occasionally profound. You can almost think up a deliberate paradox/oxymoron and find meaning in it:

Blindingly obvious.

Infinitely well-defined.

Fantastically commonplace.

Brilliantly dull.

And - tightening the circle - there are enantiodromic words such as priceless, invaluable and bottomless (http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=451)

Which all goes to prove that language reflects reality, in that opposites coexist all over the place, and at the extreme opposites have more rather than less in common with one another.
We don't live in a binary/boolean world.

Another contribution to the new Philosophy of Words forum, perhaps..

Paradoxical FishonaBike

I'm not sure this belongs here, but I'm reminded of the difference between a generalist and a specialist:

The specialist learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.

The generalist learns less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything.

These two opposites mean the same thing in the extreme limit!

Robert

Of course, an oxymoron really means the pinhead freak in sideshow at carnival or oldtime circus.

c.f. oxycephalic

Thanks Fish - and others....Perhaps "religious war" isn't an oxymoron - I've just always heard it referred to as one, and it makes sense to me simply because of the "thou shalt not kill" rule that appears in all three "book" religions (I believe it does?) - Christianity, Islam and Judaism (doing it in alphabetical order in an attempt not to insult ANYONE!).

How about this one, which apparently ran in a sentence in a review of a play a friend of mine was in? (told me by the friend, of course):

incredibly believable

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.

the difference between a generalist and a specialist

Like it, Robert . Have already quoted it to all who would care to listen, and some that wouldn't.

I think I aspire to be an extreme specialist.

Fisk

I think I'm a general specialist...
generally...

I think I'm a general specialist...
A military leader with only one or two tactics could be a specialist general.

These are from one of the sites I found:

American beer
American culture
American education
American English
American geographers
American history

...cute.

Dear WW: your choices of oxymorons sound like you come from Marin county.

Dear wwh,

I'm an ALL-A-Marin County Girl***!

johnjohn gets full credit for this one, which he posted back in September 2000:

"plain language for lawyers" ( - an oxymoron, I hear you say)

Keiva: In plain language you are not welcome on AWADtalk.

this is just a trick... "johnjohn gets full credit." johnjohn is yet an other person who doesn't respond to Keiva's posts. Please don't think JJ is a friend to him

See
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=73423

Go away Keiva, you are not wanted here.