Oxymoronic Behavior

Sep 30, 2023

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*Romeo and Juliet (detail)* by Frank Dicksee, 1884 (public domain - Wikipedia)

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This week, the retirement of a media mogul made me realize that his empire helped to grow a movement that relies on populist hate of elites. On a network built by a billionaire.

Something of an oxymoron, don’t you think?

Image of Mr. Smithers and Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" walking in front of a large office building. Burns says: OKAY, IT'S TIME TO WIN THE LOVE OF THESE HATEUL MORONS. STEP ONE: AMASS A VAST MEDIA EMPIRE. — Rupert Murdoch’s early years

Oxymorons are rhetorical devices that juxtapose two terms with opposite meanings.

Examples are phrases like “organized chaos,” “jumbo shrimp,” and sadly, “business ethics.”

The term oxymoron was first recorded as Latinized Greek oxymōrum, c. 400 A.D. by Maurus Servius Honoratus aka Servius the Grammarian (he should be our patron saint here at “Off the Clock”).

It is derived from the Greek word ὀξύς (oksús), meaning “sharp, keen, or pointed” and μωρός (mōros), meaning “dull, stupid, foolish.”

The concept stuck and even today, oxymorons surround us daily.

Cartoon titled "a small crowd at the oxymoron gathering: @John Atkinson, Wrong Hands - uninvited guest, retired worker, private citizen, graduate student, paid volunteer, adult child, assistant supervisor, escaped prisoner, known spy, unsung hero, social outcast, cheerful pessimist, foreign national, relative stranger militant pacifist, resident alien, natural actor — Credit: Oxymoron Gathering

At the museum:

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