Oxymore, Not Less

The ancient Greeks, those witty chaps, made their term for an oxymoron…an oxymoron! The word means “sharp dullness”—referring to “cleverly stupid,” not “old knife that can give you tetanus.”

That etymology helps us understand why bipartisanship fails in Congress these days. In a democracy, “partisanship” means “along party lines.” As in, “I’m voting for this even though it doesn’t make any sense, simply because I’m a (circle one) Democrat/Republican.” “Bi,” when not used by adolescent males, means “two.” Put them together and the meaning becomes, “People who detest each other singing ‘Kumbaya’ for the cameras.” When people go beyond party lines and actually accomplish something—I’m old enough to remember when that actually happened in Washington—the effort is not bipartisan but nonpartisan. The oxymoron makes for a nice parlor game, the winner being the person who comes up with the most apt one.

Airline food

Military intelligence (Groucho Marx coined this one, of course.)

Open secret

Microsoft Works

Free love

Jumbo shrimp

Pretty ugly

Undeclared voter

Continental breakfast (hardly continent-sized)

Compassionate conservative

Pragmatic idealist

You may see some stereotype flipping here: Microsoft is infamous for its klugey software. To consider “free love” an oxymoron, you have to think of love in typically cynical terms. The oxymoron often flips stereotypes. You can, too, by listening for terms that contradict commonly accepted notions of a subject.