oxymoron
I know there is a word that describes a word or saying that "wrong" or exact opposite of what it is meant to be.
The example I have is " HELP desk" when the help desk is unhelpful.
Can some one supply the word which is used to describe these redundant misnomas.
Thankyou.
oxymoron
Oxymoron?
EDIT: blast, beaten to the punch
Hey, it's Service Desk now, don't you know
This thread had me wandering around Wikipedia for other linguistic terminology.
I'd always wanted to know what a daleuprowe is.
I finally get it - palindrome backwards and upside down. (with the 'i' changed to an 'e' for some reason)
Er...actually, I think oxymoron doesn't quite fulfil UP's requirements as stated.
Oxymoron is two juxtaposed words (or phrases) which contradict each other but used together produce a specific meaning.
It seems that 'contradiction in terms' is what UP described - labelling an unhelpful bunch of geeks 'the Helpdesk'.
Even 'unhelpful helpdesk' wouldn't really be an oxymoron.
The most memorable example of an oxymoron I ever heard was 'army intelligence'...
from my english lit day - classic oxymoron - dirty angel
Oxymoron is a term in rhetoric for the deliberate coupling of words that are strictly contradictory: e.g. in a devout atheist, or I am relaxing strenuously.
"oxymoron" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. P. H. Matthews. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Syndicated edition for Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators. 11 October 2007
Terms made in jest in opposition to each other, or interpreted as in opposition, would be a contradiction in terms e.g. ScotchBrite
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