Oxymoron

Are you oxymoronic? Sorry, I don't mean to call anyone a moron but I merely said oxymoron. In the dictionaries, this is described as a phrase that contradicts itself. Oxymoron is a play with words. Usually, two words that contract one another. Can sorrow ever be sweet? Yes, said William Shakespeare. In his Romeo and Juliet, sweet sorrow was uttered by his heroine, remember? 

Countless other examples occur in everyday use and below is a non-exhaustive list. During my working days, we always typed Please sign on the duplicate copy and return it to us on correspondences to customers when we wanted them to acknowledge the receipt of our letters. Sometimes, we used a rubber stamp that said original copy on the duplicate copy of the letters. Oops, I did it again!

Lawyers liked to say final draft which left me scratching my noggin. Economists loved to achieve zero deficit, don't they? And when I was in school, there was once in 1967 when the teachers went on strike and some senior pupils from Form Six stepped in temporarily to become student teachers for an hour or two.

Although prevalent in the past, even today we sometimes cannot tell genuine imitations apart from the real goods being hocked online until it is too late. And is a true myth the same as fake news? Not that I'm demanding an answer from anyone. You can choose to do nothing!