برای مهربان بودن باید سنگدل باشم!

She thinks she’s hiding this

but everybody in the office knows about it!

It’s an open secret now.

Yeah it’s seriously funny!

Okay.

What do we have here?

Open Secret?

Seriously Funny?

Look at each of these words separately.

They have opposite meanings

but are used together

and we can easily understand their meanings.

The figure of speech used here

is called oxymoron!

Check out these other examples:

Clearly Misunderstood

Cruel Kindness

Small Crowd

Fully Empty

Virtual Reality

And happily Married!

Just kidding!

Anyway!

Don’t confuse oxymoron with paradox.

They’re a little different.

While Paradox is a statement

or a group of statements

oxymoron is a combination of

two contradictory words.

A paradox makes your brain hurt

because it seems like something is true

and false at the same time.

In the play “Hamlet”,

Hamlet himself is ruminating over

what course of action he must take

in his present circumstance.

He says:

“I must be cruel, only to be kind.”

Cruel to be kind?

How can these two concepts coexist?

And yet

they do make sense when the reader

considers the meaning.

That is the nature of a paradox.

An oxymoron, on the other hand,

is a description

enjoyed in the moment then gone.

You don’t think about it twice!

It’s clear!

Can you tell me examples

of an oxymoron and a paradox?

Write them in the comments!

See ya!