Legally Drunk

[UrRoyalHighness]

I love hearing the phrase, "Sir, you are legally drunk". If I ever got asked that while drinking I would be like "So whats the f'ing problem"
I guess its one of those oxy moron phrases
Anyone else find this or other oxy moron statments funny

[No One Knows]

Legally drunk. Well, if it's legal, what's the problem? "Leave me alone, officer, I'm legally drunk!"

-George Carlin

[WEBB]

how is legally drunk an oxy moron....an oxy moron is jumbo shrimp or the sound of silence...

al;so i dont get whta you are reall y saying...legally drunk refers to the fact you are over the legal limit in blood alcohol level....if they say you are legally drunk then you cant drive and can also be fined for public drunkeness...also why would some one ask you that, it is more something you are told...like the cops told me i was legally drunk when i crashed my peddle bike into that fat girl....

but still not an oxy moron....

[qualityclrk1]

nope not an oxymoron......but legally drunk should be stated as illegally drunk......

[WEBB]

but based on the law you are drunk you re legally drunk...like when you are speeding you are not called illegally speeding, but you are breakin the law so that is illegal.....i do agree it is a stupid term but it isnt an oxy moron....like military intelligence, hahahha

[qualityclrk1]

take the word "irregardless" for example.........it's not actually a word....it's got a double negative....irregard means without regard, regardless means without regard.....so when u say "irregardless" you're saying withoutregardwithout

[WEBB]

ya i agree...this is wy the english language is the hardest to learn, cause there are no rules and a lot of words just dont make sense...

[Second2None]

what about watching the wind or being on the grass growing team
lol

[WEBB]

watching the wind is an example...but i dont get the other one...hahha

[MATTMAN01]

Seems self explanatory to me. But I just follow Webb's avy around, I kike the way she's looking at me I know she wants me, its all in her nips.

[qualityclrk1]

webb, i don't think watching the wind is an oxymoron........

[qualityclrk1]

what is watching the wind contradicting?.....jumbo shrimp (jumbo=large, shrimp = small)........so it contradicts itself......watching and wind don't contradict......but such things like random order, civil war, same difference, alone together, pretty ugly etc do contradict.... (lol i googled the oxymorons)

[DSM4Life]

This thread legally sucks.

[jaydub]

all i really know is that i friggin rock!!

[DSM4Life]

An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or, more rarely, oxymora) is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. Oxymoron is a loanword from Greek oxy ("sharp" or "pointed") and moros ("dull"). Thus the word oxymoron is, by definition, an oxymoron.

Oxymorons are a proper subset of the expressions called contradictions in terms. What distinguishes oxymorons from other paradoxes and contradictions is that they are used intentionally, for rhetorical effect, and the contradiction is only apparent, as the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept, such as "cruel to be kind".

The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination. For example, the following line from Tennyson's Idylls of the King contains two oxymorons:

"And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true"

Oxymorons can also be wooden irons in that they are in violation of the Principle of contradiction which asserts that nothing can be thought if it contains contradictory characteristics, predicates, attributes, or qualities

Types of Oxymoron

Richard Lederer assembled a taxonomy of oxymorons in an article in Word Ways in 1990[1], running from single-word oxymorons such as "pianoforte" (literally, "soft-loud") through "doublespeak oxymora" (deliberately intended to confuse) and "opinion oxymora" (editorial opinions designed to provoke a laugh). In general, oxymorons can be divided into expression that were deliberately crafted to be contradictory, such as the Tennyson quote above, and those phrases that inadvertently or incidentally contain a contradiction (often as a result of a punning use of one or both words).

[edit] Deliberate Oxymorons

Often a writer will use an oxymoron in order to deliberately call attention to a contradiction. Richard Feynman, for example, in his lectures on physics, spends a chapter discussing "dry water" [1]. Clearly, he could have used a different phrase, such as perhaps "hydrodynamics of fluids in the limiting case of viscosity approaching zero," but the deliberate contradiction of the phrase "dry water" both adds humor to his otherwise-dry analysis, and also emphasizes the fact that the substance he is discussing is theoretical and not real.

Some examples of deliberate oxymorons include:

* Deafening silence
* Successful Failure
* Forward retreat
* Accidentally on Purpose[2]
* Little Big Man

Oxymorons are most tellingly employed in injecting a sense of ironic, ostensibly unintended, humor. The effect is to confront the reader or the listener with a sense of ludicrousness so as to render the whole sentence and the idea absurd and funny. It should be remembered that this is a purely subjective line of thinking and presupposes that the reader or listener is already familiar with the intended humor. Examples of such thought-provoking oxymorons include:

* Orphans of the Living - children in the foster-parent system.
* "Poet in residence in absentia" - a title granted to a poet, at his own request, by a university.
* Evolution Sunday/Weekend, a Christian service conducted to celebrate Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

[edit] Popular oxymorons

In popular usage, the term oxymoron is sometimes used more loosely, in the sense of a simple contradiction in terms. Often, it is then applied to expressions which, unlike real oxymorons, are used in full earnest and without any sense of paradox by many speakers in everyday language. Comedian George Carlin brought many of these to popular attention in his album "Toledo Window Box" and in his live comedy routines.

* "With all deliberate speed" (i.e. "go quickly slowly")
* Pretty ugly
* Alone together
* Liberal conservative
* Same difference
* Jumbo shrimp
* Random Order
* Organized Chaos
* civil war
* not to mention...

Many collected lists of oxymorons are available, for example, at oxymoronlist.com [2] and oxymorons.info [3].

Very often the labeling of an expression as a perceived oxymoron is made on the basis of substituting an alternative, non-intended meaning for the meaning normally intended in the context of the expression in question. For instance, in the expression Civil war, the term civil is normally intended to mean "between citizens of the same state". In this sense, the expression is neither paradox nor self-contradictory. However, if civil is construed as 'non-military' or 'reasonable and polite', the expression is a contradiction in terms (as per satirist Richard Armour in It All Started with Columbus, who said the American Civil War was fought politely). Such designations of alleged oxymorons are often made with a humorous purpose. Alternatively, an oxymoron may occur when a word or phrase changes meaning. Few people today pay attention to the inherent contradiction in eating with "plastic silverwear" or drinking from "a plastic glass," because the word "silverware" has come to mean eating utensils of any composition, and "glass" is commonly used to refer to any cup from which one can drink.


ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron

[MATTMAN01]

My brain hurts.