Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom for People Who Enjoy Word Play

Oxymoronica: Any variety of self-contradictory statements or observations that on the surface appear false or illogical, but at a deeper level are profoundly true.

The author is Dr. Mardy Grothe, and based on the titles of his other books the guy is into word play. "Ifferisms," "I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like," "Viva la Repartee," "Oxymoronica," "Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You," and "Neverisms." I myself have been a lifelong quote collector, but this guy is definitely in the major leagues of that hobby.

The foreword is by Richard Lederer, an author of 30 books related to word play and not to be confused (as I was) with William J. Lederer, author of The Ugly American. I'd read the book in my youth, and the name Lederer stuck with me, in spite of fifty plus years passing. It was a powerful story about Southeast Asia, which was turned into a film starring Marlon Brando in 1963. Between this and Graham Greene's The Quiet American, it quickly becomes apparent how moronic our involvement was in the Vietnam escalation.

Oops, this is supposed to be about word play. Let's get to it.

Dr. Grothe's book begin with an explanation of where his title comes from. Oxymoron is to Oximoronica as Eros is to Erotica and Exotic to Exotica. Since that doesn't explain too much, let's just say it is "quotations that contain incompatible or incongruous elements."

Most of us are familiar with jumbo shrimp. That's an oxymoron. So, this book is full of quotes that accomplish the same but on another level. Here are some examples.

"Even his ignorance is encyclopedic."--Stanislaw Lec

"Free love is too expensive."--Bernadette Devlin

"You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap."--Dolly Parton

After an introduction to  his theme, with dozens of examples, the author clumps his quotations into chapters by theme. The Human Condition, Oxymoronica on Stage & Screen, Inadvertent Oxymoronica, Political Oxymoronica, and nine other categories.

The book includes classic and obscure sources. Here are a couple witticisms from the chapter on The Human Condition:

"We learn from experience that men never
learn anything from experience."--George Bernard Shaw

"The only certainty is that nothing is certain."--Plint the Younger

"Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering--and it's all over much too soon."--Woody Allen

"A man chases a woman until she catches him."--Anonymous

"Their very silence is a loud cry."--Cicero

Reading this book makes me wish to find his others. If you find them first, tell me what you think.

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Related Links
Oxymoronica on Amazon. (Used copies as low as $2)
My wordplay story constructed of homonyms: How Eye One The Wore
Creating Crossword Puzzles for Fun & Profit

Amusing Wordplay Courtesy the Washington Post

The following was shared with me at a party last night... on someone's Blackberry. I asked that they forward it to me so I could share it with you. Wordplay has always been fun for me, and clearly I'm not alone. Enjoy....

Caution: If you take easy offense to off-color material, my apologies for not having edited this for you. Rated: PG-13

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid..

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

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The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.




Have a great weekend!

Palindromes

Words are endlessly fascinating. Word puzzles abound in all languages, and ours is no exception. Word play assumes many forms from crossword puzzles and word jumbles to anagrams. As kids we loved search word puzzles where you have to find all the words in a grid of letters, and who among us has not played the word game Hang Man?

I once wrote a story composed of as many homonyms as possible called How Eye One The Wore, which was published in Games magazine years ago. That was fun, incorrectly placing more than 150 homonyms into a 500 word short story.

But my theme this morning is palindromes. According to Wikipedia, "A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction." Here are some examples to illustrate.

LEVEL
KAYAK
RACECAR
SOLOS
SAGAS

The fun part is seeing the elaborate lengths to which sentences can be constructed. As a general rule it is O.K. to adjust punctuation to make sentences work like actual sentences.

Here are some examples of phrases, though I assure you the lists seem endless.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!
"Am I mad, eh?" Giselle sighed, "Am I, Ma?"
A nut for a jar of tuna.
Dad: "Alas, a salad ad!"
Delia failed.
Del saw a sled.
Dennis sinned.
Dennis and Edna sinned.
Detach cat, Ed.

Well, you get the picture. Palindromes can be fun. There are quite a few websites with palindromes online, but here's one you might especially like.

Here are a couple examples which the Palindrome Police have indicated are not really acceptable, though you'll have to admit they are clever. (source: Rinkworks)

Retteb, si flahd noces eht tub, but the second half is better.

Doctor Reubenstein was shocked and dismayed when he answered the ringing telephone, only to hear a strange, metallic, alien voice say, "Yasec iovn eilacilla temeg! Nartsa raehoty lnoenoh pelet gnig, nirehtde rewsnaehn ehw. Deya! Msid! Dnadek cohssaw nietsne buerro, tcod?"

But my real objective here was simply to share a Weird Al video from YouTube. When my kids were growing up, this is the one show I loved to watch that they watched on Saturday mornings. Weird Al Yankovich seems to be endlessly creative, and his spoofs on MTV style videos are not to be missed. We had a couple Weird Al CDs in the house and, well, he's just plain witty.

So without further ado, here's a video of Weird Al performing Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, which appeared in the 1967 D. A. Pennebaker film Don't Look Back. Except he does the whole thing in palindromes. He even sets up the background the same, with Allen Ginsburg or a Ginsburg-like character. Turn down the volume if you are in an office.



And, for comparison purposes, here's the original.

Have a fun day making word play.
Net forever. Often!