Hurry Up and Wait! Trivia Quiz

Answer:

When two terms appear side by side that appear to be contradictory, this figure of speech is known as an oxymoron. Such contradictions are also known as paradoxes, though this latter term has a broader meaning. Writers, especially poets, have used oxymorons for centuries as literary devices to illustrate the conflicts and incongruities of life. Consider Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" Act 1, Scene 1:
"O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this."

Thirteen oxymorons in eight lines - that's impressive.
Oxymorons have been used as comedy devices for just as long. Comedian George Carlin was able to create oxymorons by making arguments for phrases such as "business ethics" and "military intelligence".

In this quiz, the twelve oxymorons were:
Civil war; clearly misunderstood; original copy; pretty ugly; unbiased opinion; seriously funny; recorded live; negative income; old news; minor miracle; friendly takeover and crash landing.

Some of these terms are probably not seen as oxymorons. For example, most people would know exactly what a civil war is, but by definition, no war can be civil. In this case, "civil" is a synonym for "domestic". Yet the term makes perfect sense because it has become common usage. Similarly, "old news" is strictly a contradiction because you cannot have anything that is new be old. Here "new" as in "news" has a different context: "News" means"current events". Most people would equate "pretty ugly" with "fairly ugly", yet taken without context, the two words are oxymorons. Some of the oxymorons in the quiz are just that because improper terminology has been applied. For example, "miracle" is an absolute - it is either a miracle or not, the term has no room for relatively.

Perhaps, author and linguist Richard Watson Todd said it best: "The true beauty of oxymorons is that, unless we sit back and really think, we happily accept them as normal English."

On the other hand, tautologies are almost quite the opposite: They express an idea, statement, or word that states the same thing twice, but in a different way. Often, tautologies are used in everyday speech without even realising we have spoken a tautology. How often have you heard advertisements promising a "free gift" when only "gift" is required? The "Oxford English Dictionary" defines a tautology as "the saying of the same thing twice over in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style". E.g., how many times do we hear "convicted felon" when "felon" would suffice? Sometimes the repetition is quite deliberate, especially in literature. It is used to emphasise the primary noun. Sometimes, with acronyms, the last word is redundantly repeated. Some examples include ATM machine, PIN number, HIV virus and Please RSVP.

The six tautologies in this quiz are:
joint collaboration; necessary requirement; close proximity; over exaggerates; convicted felon and free gift