Word Fun
It’s been a serious few days on Bud’s Blog. We had The Jesus Follies on Saturday … with all the interesting comment action … then things turning out for The Best (or not) on Sunday. Even yesterday’s Smiles were of a serious sort. So, it’s Top Sites Tuesday #110 and it’s time to have some fun. Once again real work is interfering with my blogging schedule (the nerve!), so I’m having my Word Fun writing this post on Sunday… hopefully, you’ll have yours reading it on Tuesday.
Now, for a word-guy, what could be more fun than Word Fun, words strung together in interesting combinations so cool that they have their own name. If you’re on the ball today, you know from my illustration that Thought Number One is the word combination known as the oxymoron, which Wikipedia says is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. The one I’ve heard a lot is military intelligence. I think maybe it was born during the antiwar days of the sixties but it’s not strictly true. After all our military brought us the Global Positioning System (GPS) that so many use to get around these days. Oxymoron.com has hundreds of these little word-goodies, so I jumped over there and borrowed a few. Some are things we say all the time, like, It was fairly obvious or, He came to a rolling stop. Some are social commentary, like political promise or peacekeeping force. Some word combinations only seem like oxymorons to members of a particular group … compassionate conservatives and Reagan Democrats come to mind. Personally, I get a chuckle out of jumbo shrimp and rap music. Do you have any favorites?
Thought Number Two concerns Palindromes which are phrases that read the same forward and backward. I think the best known is the line that Adam used when he hit on Eve in the Garden of Eden … Madam, I’m Adam. Backwards: madA m’I, madaM. Well, you have to leave out the punctuation and use your imagination a bit. For a spiritual touch, I like Do geese see God? or for inspiration, how about, Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? One of the best is A man, a plan, a canal – Panama. You can find lots more at fun-with-words.com, which also has
word unit palindromes (you reverse the order of the words but not the letters) like, Blessed are they that believe they are blessed and the particularly appropriate, Escher, drawing hands, drew hands drawing Escher. There are even palindrome squares in which every row and column reads as a word in both directions.
So, if you’ve had more useless information than you can possibly stand, I’ll stop … under the condition that you’ll push my button … gently … to make me Number One on Top Sites Tuesday #110.
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Tags: blogging, memes, oxymorons, palindromes, postaday2011, Top Sites Tuesday, words, writing
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Older Eyes 
August 2, 2011 at 11:01 am
This post reminds me how this morning, my kids and I were watching “The Electric Company” on PBS Kids during breakfast and they had a word that the actors were trying hard to pronounce…PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS.
My 13-year old was quick to tell me what the word meant, even though he couldn’t remember how to say it. I just thought it was cool that he remembered a definition that he learned in school over two years ago.
Anyway, have a great week, Bud. Don’t work too hard… 🙂
Click!
August 5, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Wow. I’m going to have to look that word up …
August 2, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Have a super week bud.
August 5, 2011 at 9:07 pm
I will try my best to do so …
August 2, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Hi Bud,
I got a good chuckle from your Oxymoron illustration. hehehe I popped over to oxymoronlist.com and continued to chuckle at a few on the list – twelve-ounce pound cake, smart fool, Mobil Station, and “locks on 7-11 stores which are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year”
Clicks!
Wolf
August 5, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Wolf, I’m glad SOMEONE noticed my Oxy Moron picture!
August 2, 2011 at 8:01 pm
OOOOOOO! Oxymorons! I had to check out the list too and was surprised by how many things are considered oxymorons.
Now, Palindrones are special, someone had to really be creative to make palindrone boxes… maybe a little too much time on their hands?
Liggy… I’m totally going to have to look that up. It sounds cool and scary at the same time LOL
Happy Tuesday!
–Trina
August 5, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Yeah, I love stuff like this. I find palindromes fascinating.
August 3, 2011 at 5:39 am
I don’t know why but for some reason or other, I’ve never really paid much attention to oxymorons but, I did this morning as I clicked in -per your sage advice -to that website and loved it! You asked us to list our favorite(s) and you know, after the past so many weeks of the absurd events with the debt ceiling, etc., I’m thinking my absolute favorite -at least for right now -has to be “Congressional Cooperation!” That definitely has to be the best, most accurate oxymoron of late -perhaps forever.
I was thinking too that someone with a really sharp wit and a pen truly like a sword could probably compose a complete post using gobs and gobs of those oxymorons! (Definitely not me, but there is someone else I can think of, whose name I won’t mention, but I’m thinking he’s probably reading these words, maybe even sparking a few thoughts about doing that in his mind too. Now there’s a way to let the curmudgeon loose!
August 5, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Whoa. An oxymoron-only post. That would be a challenge. I’d not only have to recruit my curmudgeon, I’d have to kcik him around to get him good and ornery.
Yes, Congressional Cooperation … or Bipartisan Measure.