A Place for Illogic Might Exist After All

…or maybe the club name is an oxymoron. Can you have a club of loners?

I suspect they shouldn’t recruit tech writers, either.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Oxymorons are names (usually two words) for things that are self contradictory. Easy post for me today; John Atkinson put together a clever collection of oxymorons.

An oxymoron is a statement that is funnily self-contradictory.

What makes something funny? That’s a question that goes way way back, but one characteristic of humor, I think, is that it can involve a topic on lots of people’s minds. So even though I don’t do politics on this site, the quality of journalism is a common topic these days, so this comic is funny, right? Right?

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

“Oxymoron” is derived from the Greek words for sharp and foolish. It’s a word for an expression that appears at first glance to be self-contradictory. People like to use them to make humorous sarcastic remarks. Here’s a comic from 2014 that uses a bunch of them. The protagonist is a lady doctor and the duck is her (imaginary?) mentor. It’s a nice strip, especially if you like the convoluted pathways of medical careers. It’s written by a real MD, even. Go to the site to see its unusual name.

Everybody likes oxymorons. Do you have a favorite? Mine happens to be the last one in the strip—it catches you off guard.

PS—In my email exchange with the writer of this strip, he asked to be told when I was going to post it, so I did. I got this email in reply:

It’s quite a coincidence. I was working on the layout of a new book and I had just included that oxymoron comic strip into it and remembered your request! Then I get this E-mail! I’m currently crowdfunding the printing of this book. If you’re interested, I could really use the help! http://igg.me/at/callous20years.
Awesome news about it finally coming up on your site! I’ll be sure to mention it as well. 🙂

So there you go! I recommend you follow his link if you like nice comics. I did, and got a hard copy of the book.

I’ve heard the term Grammar Nazi bandied about occasionally to refer to those of us educated and noble souls who prefer to have English spoken in a manner that doesn’t insult the speaker (or writer). I prefer the term Grammar Curmudgeon, myself, as indicating a modicum of warmth and friendly good humor toward the issue of communicating correctly.

Today I ran into a new name for those of us who know and care about correct English. Even though the context pokes fun at us, I think I like the term.

Grammar Emperor has a nice ring, don't you think?

A word about the comic. Jeff Mallett writes Frazz, a strip about a wise and athletic grade school janitor, a precocious student and his classmates, and the rest of the school staff. The comics are often insightful, and the humor is sometimes—well, it helps to have a little education and be able to think, yourself. The astute reader will get that the joke above is based on an oxymoron and a reference to a folk tale about a foolish ruler.