Riddling Morons Hidden Away in Amphoras! Wait-What?!

• "Oxymoron: is a compressed paradox that closely links two seemingly contradictory elements in a way that, on further consideration, turns out to make good sense." (Hamilton, pg. 57)
• "Litotes: is a figure of thought in which a point is affirmed by negating its opposite." (Hamilton, pg. 57)
• "Anaphora: is the intentional repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines, stanzas, sentences, or paragraphs. (Hamilton, pg. 64)

Everyone's heard of those famous oxymoron's, usually when the government has done something we think is stupid...again. We spout out the common suspects of "Military Intelligence," "Civil War," "Defensive Strike," "Disaster Relief," and "Peacekeeper Missile?!" The thing about these are that there's tons more where they came from! Some simply contradict each other by the very definitions of the words while with others (like Military Intelligence) have earned moronic connotations. For that matter, I never knew that Sophomore means both "wise" as well as "foolish." Most of us will be that next year, someone please remind me how that seems familiar...oh, yeah, WE WERE ALL (or still are) TEENAGERS who think that we know best! Well, if you'd like to check out a neat list of governmental oxymoronic words, check out Oxymorons.info.

Who loves understatements? Well, all the sarcastic people for one, but that's beside the point. I'm no fool, I know that average readers dislike reading Old English because of litotes. They often have the ability to confuse unless you actually sit, think them over, then have a good laugh at the characters expense! It's a good thing that litotes are not uncommon and that we have come to dislike double negatives! Just remember, The Queen is not amused, and so by extension are we. If you'd like to check out a few examples of litotes, check out Grammar.about.com.

For starters, I'll give anyone an imaginary cookie if ya can tell me what an amphora is right off the top of your head without looking it up. The best thing about this imaginary confection is the fact that no one's allergic to it! Well, almost...my computer now has a cookie fetish, but I've enrolled her in a program so it's all good. Anyways, anaphors are quite common in the Bible in addition to being extremely helpful to those individuals who wish to drive home a point, like a pile-driver. "I will not clean my room. / I will not use the ratty broom. / I will not duct tape my roommate. / I will not put up that gate!"

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