What's your favourite oxymoron?

Mine's got to be: - necessary evil.

 

George Carlin's assertion that "military intelligence" is an oxymoron always makes laugh. .

 

I didn't know that was an oxymoron.

Another one I like is: - exact estimate. It's composed of an oxymoron and aliteration .

 

Yeah, those are cool. Like "I 'm almost sure".

 

How about what a mother would say,
"If you get hurt, don't come crying to me."

 

Violent happy!

http://www.oxymoronlist.com/

 

Jumbo Shrimp. George Carlin again.

 

Violent happy!

http://www.oxymoronlist.com/

"Adult Male" on this list made me laugh!

 

The good ol' power of English.

Plurale tantum is an interesting one. The nouns that take the plural form both in number and singular. Like: sheep, jeans, sunglasses.

What do the following fall under?

Numerical advantage

High probability of events

Strategically allocate

I use these quite frequently, but I can't identify what English tool they refer to.

 

@ Georacer

I've noticed you manipulate the use of an apostrophe by a gap.

For example:

I'm

I 'm

Is this for clarity?

 

It is a residual habit from Greek and, as I see it, a reasonable thing to do.

Initially, there are two words: "I am"
and after the abolition of the vowel the words are still two, so they should be separated: "I 'm"

Is there a grammatical rule in English that says otherwise?

 

Huh? lol

Don't tell me you were offended by that. I was intrigued that was all.

 

I wasn't. What made you think I was?

I was genuinely asking.

 

Just how your question came across and not that I know of. But yeah, it makes sense why you do that. I'd just never seen it done before.

 

I'm not sure if there's a rule, but I haven't seen a space used before.
Sometimes the apostrophe doesn't separate two words, but shortens part of a word (doesn't and haven't, etc).

 

Hello,

In dutch we also have that kind of use of the apostrphe.
We say 'smorgens instead of des morgens (in the morning) or
'smiddags instead of des middags (in the aftenoon) or
'savonds instead of des avonds (in the evening) or
'snachts instead of des nachts (in the night).
The phrases with des in front are old dutch.

Bertus

 

I was once told that "My insignificance was phenomenal".
My ego never recovered.

 

It is a residual habit from Greek and, as I see it, a reasonable thing to do.

Initially, there are two words: "I am"
and after the abolition of the vowel the words are still two, so they should be separated: "I 'm"

Is there a grammatical rule in English that says otherwise?

You are correct; it is reasonable and logical. Unfortunately, English is not. I'm sure I have never seen a space before an apostrophe in any (American) English contraction.

I love that snip tool in Win 7.

 

That is solid info, tracecom. Thanks!
I stand corrected, and as Justin says, "smarter every day".

Is that from wikipedia?

 

That is solid info, tracecom. Thanks!
I stand corrected, and as Justin says, "smarter every day".

Is that from wikipedia?

Yes, but I think it's correct.