Thursday, March 29, 2007

Something to know

oxymoron - Conjoining contradictory terms

Many a times we use two contradictory terms together. say for example: deafening silence, busy doing nothing etc.

euphemism - An inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive

Say for example, Physically challenged or Differently abled instead of physically handicapped, mentally challenged instead of mentally retarded, senior citizen instead of oldster etc.

neologism - A newly invented word or phrase

many new words get added up into the english dictionary day by day due to their increasing usage ans not because of any kind of etymological originof being derived from their roots. Typical examples are: bug in a computer program, Googling has become a verb of late, plastic being popularly used instead of the word credit card.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Blog - is also a neologism - from web & log -> weblog - > blog.

Log comes from the solid book on which people (seamen) used to record stuff on their voyages.

Web is flimsy and light, log is sturdy and heavy - so isnt weblog an oxymoron ?

Just random food for thought ....