From my schooldays, I was fascinated by uncommon words in common usage. I would look for a chance to use them myself. ‘Mimetic’ was one such word, which I saw in a book by a critic, Erich Auerbach, entitled ‘Mimesis’. It is a Greek word used by Aristotle to mark the function of poetry as imitating reality. This habit of mine would annoy one of my teachers who put down students trying to show off by using filched words to impress others.
But my fascination has persisted, though ageing memory has erased many words that I never needed in the mundane present. Occasionally I came upon one that appeared to fit a real need in discourse, with its meaning fairly obvious, even without lexical mentoring. Years ago I read an essay which offered the arresting word, ‘oxymoron’, denouncing pretentious bits of prose. Thanks to the internet, I learnt that the word meant something akin to “contradiction in terms”, as a figure of speech.
Great was my delight at finding the word not too rare, but I had not ‘saved’ it in my computer and did not know how to find it again in a dictionary or reference book. One night I kept awake trying to recollect that lost word. The next morning I searched the web for the equivalent of “contradiction in terms”. This took me back to ‘moron’; I found that this ‘moron’ was also a legacy from old Greek, meaning literally, “sharp-dull”, and hence a self-serving example. It is fun to spot oxymorons in common parlance, like “random order”, “original copy”, “definite possibility”, “open secret” and ”even odds” and “bitter-sweet”. The best I think is “helpline”, when you hop from “press one” to infinity.
The oxymoron resembles the paradox in highlighting that life embodies many things of a basically contradictory nature. Paradox has been described as “truth standing on its head to attract attention”. Lord Tennyson, who wrote reams of poetry, resorted to this trope when his genius was taking a break. Two lines from his Lancelot story-poem are cited as memorable oxymorons only because he perpetrated them: “His honour rooted in dishonour stood,/ And faith unfaithful made his falsely true.” A better quote is his line, “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
As a pastime one can compile one’s own catalogue of oxymorons and criticise the findings of others. “Benevolent despotism” would qualify as an example, being forever topical. It is accepted as the name of a historical phase in Europe, when peoples were obliged to reconcile the simultaneous need for radical change and stability. Is this not modern India’s main problem now?
Everyone will have his or her choice of morons to despise. I confess to being a “logo-moron” fascinated by words, a “logophile”. I propose “ego-moron” and “eco-moron” as fresh additions. The former is the familiar self-centred bore, and the latter is the over-reaching economic adviser or the amateur ecologist who wants to re-shape the environment.“Nomo-phobia” is the scare of having “no mobile” when it is most needed by someone dumped in that discomfiture of deprived connectivity and flailing arms.