Editorial
Front Page - Friday, March 5, 2010
I Swear...
Oxymorons revisited
Vic Fleming
Part 1
Susan keeps a certain product in our fridge. It is in an old-timey one-quart milk container. The label reads “Land-O-Lakes Fat Free Half and Half – Ultra-Pasteurized.”
For whatever reason, looking upon it this morning reminded me of a visit I made to the world of oxymorons back in the mid-1980s.
An oxymoron, of course, is a phrase, hyphenated word or compound word made up of a combination of two or more words that are considered contradictory, or at least incongruous (such as “cruel kindness”).
The term has grown in recent years to include concepts, ideas and even products, theories, etc., that are composed of seemingly contradictory or incongruous elements.
(Yes, I wrote that definition myself.)
The year was 1983 and I was in Washington, D.C. I was at the airport that in 15 years would be named to honor the man who was in the White House at that moment.
The airline clerk told me that my flight had been canceled. That sounded like bad news, and I’m sure my facial expression told how I felt about it.
Not to worry, she said, as my flight would be “reoriginating” in St. Louis. Thus, the airline would fly me to St. Louis free of charge, getting me there in time to catch the reoriginated flight.
This, I recall thinking at the time, was the Platonic Ideal of oxymoronia.
Originate (verb): To come into existence.
Re (prefix): Again or anew.
Cancel (verb): Destroy the validity or effectiveness of.
Before this flight had even come into existence, the airline had undone its validity. And now, without its ever having come into being, it was going to be brought into being again.
“Preorigination cancellation.” That was truly something to ponder. An oxymoron of the 50-cent version (in 1983 dollars, of course).
That this act or event was being done without prior notice to passengers and in a city hundreds of miles away added to the breadth of the concept that I found myself chewing on across time zones.
Dare I say, or write, again that in 1983, I was but one small cog in the process of a unilateral multi-phasic, intercity, time-delay, post-preorigination cacellation reorigination?
No?
OK, I won’t say it.
•••
For the next couple of weeks, I propose an extended revisitation to the world of oxymorons. To set the stage, with a little help from Richard Lederer, let me posit the following:
“Oxymoron” is made up of two Geek root words that, aptly, have opposite meanings themselves.
“Oxys” means keen or sharp, and “moros” means silly or foolish. Yes, the latter is the source of “moron.”
With that as our background, next week, we’ll look at several different types of residents of this fascinating community.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at judgevic@comcast.net.
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