Assignments for Self-Control

1. What meaning is foregrounded in a hyperbole?

2. What types of hyperbole can you name?

3. What makes a hyperbole trite and where are trite hyperboles predominantly used?

4. What is understatement? In what way does it differ from hyperbole?

5. Recollect cases of vivid original hyperboles or under-statements from your Russian or English reading.

Oxymoron is stylistic device the syntactic and semantic structures of which come to clashes. In Shakespearian defi-nitions of love, much quoted from his Romeo and Juliet, perfectly correct syntactically, attributive combinations present a strong semantic discrepancy between their members. Cf.: "O brawling love! О loving hate! О heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!"

As is clearly seen from this string of oxymorons, each one of them is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions, that help to emphasize contradictory qualities as a dialectal unity simultaneously existing in the described phe-nomenon. As a rule, one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjective individual perception of the object. Thus in an oxymoron we also deal with the foregrounding of emotive meaning, only of a different type than the one observed in previously discussed SDs. The most widely known structure of oxymoron is attributive, so it is easy to believe that the subjective part of the oxymoron is embodied in the attribute-epithet, especially because the latter also proceeds from the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. But there are also others, in which verbs are employed. Such verbal structures as "to shout mutely" (I. Sh.) or "to cry silently" (M. W.) seem to strengthen the idea, which leads to the conclusion that oxymoron is a specific type of epithet. But the peculiarity of an oxymoron lies in the fact that the speaker's (writer's) subjective view can be expressed through either of the members of the word combination.

Originality and specificity of oxymoron becomes especially evident in non-attributive structures which also, not infrequently, are used to express semantic contradiction, as in "the street damaged by improvements" (О. Н.) or "silence was louder than thunder" (U.).

 

Oxymorons rarely become trite, for their components, linked forcibly, repulse each other and oppose repeated use. There are few colloquial oxymorons, all of them showing a high degree of the speaker's emotional involvement in the situation, as in "damn nice", "awfully pretty".*

Exercise VIII. In the following sentences pay attention to the structure and semantics of oxymorons. Also indicate which of their members conveys the individually viewed feature of the object and which one reflects its generally accepted characteristic:

1. He caught a ride home to the crowded loneliness of
the barracks. (J.)

2. Sprinting towards the elevator he felt amazed at his
own cowardly courage. (G. M.)

3. They were a bloody miserable lot - the miserablest lot of men I ever saw. But they were good to me. Bloody good. (J. St.)

4. He behaved pretty lousily to Jan. (D. C.)

5. Well might he perceive the hanging of her hair in
fairest quantity in locks, some curled and some as if it
were forgotten, with such a careless care and an art so
hiding art that she seemed she would lay them for a
pattern. (Ph. S.)

6. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable
books. (E. W.)

7. Absorbed as we were in the pleasures of travel – and I in my modest pride at being the only examinee to cause a commotion - we were over the old Bridge. (W. G.)

8. "Heaven must be the hell of a place. Nothing but
repentant sinners up there, isn't it?" (Sh. D.)

9. Harriet turned back across the dim garden. The lightless
light looked down from the night sky. (I. M.)

 

10. Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy;
Rozzie was a disease, my worst friend. (J. Car.)

11. It was an open secret that Ray had been ripping
his father-in-law off. (D. U.)

12. A neon sign reads "Welcome to Reno - the biggest little town in the world." (A. M.)

13. Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield are Good Bad Boys
of American literature. (V.)

14. Haven't we here the young middle-aged woman who

* Some often repeated Russian titles form a group of trite oxymorons as in «Живой труп», «Живые мощи», «Песня без слов», «Оптимистическая трагедия».

 

cannot quite compete with the paid models in the fashion magazine but who yet catches our eye? (Jn. H.)

15. Their bitter-sweet union did not last long. (A. C.)

16. He was sure the whites could detect his adoring
hatred of them. (Wr.)

17. You have got two beautiful bad examples for parents.
(Sc. F.)

18. He opened up a wooden garage. The doors creaked.
The garage was full of nothing. (R. Ch.)

19. She was a damned nice woman, too. (H.)

20. A very likeable young man with a pleasantly ugly
face. (A. C.)