English is a funny language ...So says Amitabh in the the movie Namak Halal. It truly is; you may enjoy another cult classic 'Chupke Chupke' and giggle in the very naive-yet-difficult questions from Dharmendra. Well this blog doesn't talk about the funny side of English; rather it tells you about the different facets of the language.
What are Oxymorons?
Oxymorons are the words that have two opposite meaning words
or self-contradictory words that we often find in use in spoken or written
language.
The term originated in Latinised Greek and comprise two parts:
Oxy, meaning sharp or keen and Moron, meaning dull or foolish. Did you notice
what they did there? Yes, you got it right. The word Oxymoron is an oxymoron
itself. Beauty!! But is this just one such word? No, with vast scope of English
as a global language, definitely not.
Words such as these, that are themselves the example of the
term they denote, are called Autological or Homological words. Few more interesting
examples are:
English: Yes, it is an English word. 'Short' is a short word
and 'Noun' is a noun. Pentasyllabic is actually a pentasyllabic word(it has five
syllables) and the simplest yet most interesting: ‘Word’ is a word.
Opposite of these are Heterological words: Words, which are
not the examples of the terms, they denote. And you might have guessed by now:
Long is not really a long word; German not a german word; ‘Monosyllabic’
is definitely not monosyllabic.
Well, I guess you
know it by now, but just in case you do not, the name of our blog, ‘WittyScribble’
is an oxymoron as well.
Thanks for reading.
Ayush!!!
Knowledgeable..
ReplyDeleteInteresting and enhances knowledge as well.!!
ReplyDelete