{"id":189299,"date":"2021-08-09T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=189299"},"modified":"2021-07-20T10:27:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T09:27:10","slug":"a-note-on-morons-and-oxymorons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/08\/a-note-on-morons-and-oxymorons\/","title":{"rendered":"A Note on Morons and Oxymorons"},"content":{"rendered":"

A moron means a stupid or foolish person. There are some rich persons or those who occupy high positions in society who think that most people that they come in contact with are morons. But I am going to talk of\u00a0oxymoron<\/em>: a word or phrase that is a contradiction in itself. For example, the phrases: happily married<\/em>,\u00a0honest politician <\/em>or\u00a0deafening silence <\/em>are common examples of oxymoron. Let me shorten the word calling it XM.<\/p>\n

How does the first example of happily married become an XM? I will explain it later.<\/p>\n

A question that arises is when the word moron is well defined, how does adding the three letters\u00a0oxy<\/em>\u00a0to it, make the word mean what it means. It is a mean question and I don\u2019t know the answer;\u00a0but I will jokingly write that oxy\u00a0is a short form of oxygen that is needed and essential for life, but moron means a stupid or foolish person. By giving the person oxygen does the person become less stupid or less foolish?<\/p>\n

There is a well known person in India who writes a weekly column on this topic although he writes or speaks on other issues too. He feels that United Nations is also an XM since nations are usually disunited. He also feels that civil war is an XM \u2014 how can war which causes killings and devastation be civil?<\/p>\n

I feel that\u00a0current history<\/em>\u00a0would also fall in this category because history is past \u2014 a knowledge or chronicle of past events, not present situation. Of course, some people would differ and feel that the above expression is well understood and there should be no debate about its meaning. Other opposites are\u00a0old news <\/em>and\u00a0working vacation.<\/em><\/p>\n

In India, films are a common means of entertainment and relaxation for millions of people \u2014 in the absence of sufficient number of sports, vacations, etc.\u00a0\u00a0Several films are classified as comedies but then some publicists add the word tragic. How do we have a tragic comedy or shorten it to tragicom<\/em>? Does this expression become an XM? There is another expression for a type of film called\u00a0romcom<\/em> (romantic comedy) but this is not an XM.<\/p>\n

There are other examples of opposing cultures or beliefs: A Muslim who learns Arabic in India, being a scholar of Sanskrit language. A woman having a limited amount of money overspending on clothes or fashionable items beyond her resources. How does she manage this problem? Simple. It is not her who manages but her husband or boyfriend who has to manage. That is the reason why\u00a0happily married<\/em>\u00a0is an XM. If she is not married, then boyfriend may become a\u00a0bye bye friend.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, there are a few women who hold high positions in government or the corporate sector. For them, spending large amounts of money is common. I think it is common with them and it becomes their second nature. \u00a0There was a woman First Lady<\/em> in a neighbouring country who had about four thousand\u00a0pairs of footwear. If she wore one pair per day, how long would it take to wear all the pairs? Even a moron could have calculated the answer.<\/p>\n

Enough of morons and oxymorons. If I continue in this vein, I am likely to become a moron myself.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A moron means a stupid or foolish person. There are some rich persons or those who occupy high positions in society who think that most people that they come in contact with are morons. But I am going to talk of oxymoron: a word or phrase that is a contradiction in itself. For example, the phrases happily married, honest politician, and deafening silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}