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You'd like to be more intelligent, more successful, more respected and admired. You'd also like to eliminate stress, feel absolutely comfortable and be endlessly creative. In order to dso this, you must master your mind. You must train your brain. This only takes moments a day. Simply go to
http://braintenance.blogspot.com/, scroll around, and use our brain gym.
Having said this, I must ask you a question: What
expression is as ridiculous as "
It takes one to know one."?
The answer (or at least the most popularly selected answer amongst a group of 4 people polled while I waited for my daughter at a
train station) was, "
The more that things change, the more they remain the same."
The first expression is childish and follows no particular line of logic. The second, however is inherently conflictory and genuinely [if analyzed] meaningless. It cancels itself out.
My personal favorite stupid, irreversible,
oxymoronic expression is this classic:
"LESS IS MORE." No
syllogism there. No one says it in reverse. Maybe it applies to antimatter, or to the laws of a different universe in another dimension. But have you ever heard some one say "MORE IS LESS?" Oxymoron fans, this is better than your garden-variety oxymoron -- this is truly false irony. The
British have an expression that typifies this type of falsity in polite speech: They frequently say "
nowthen..." at the beginning of a declaration or casual
sentence fragment.
The way that I tell time, there cannot be a
nowthen. It is either now, or it was then.
Forget jumbo shrimp, authentic replica,
miltary intelligence, helpful civil servant, and all of the rest of the traditional exemplars of oxymoronics in common speech. The ones I've cited above warrant
serious exploration. The persons using them also warrant serious evaluation.
How about the pre-emptive disclaimer of all prior things mentioned to you. Someone will say, "
To tell you the truth..." Was he always lying before? A better version of the same abomination is "
I'll be honest with you..."
Words are fun to play with (unless you happen to be a member of the editorial staff of
The National Networker (TNNWC) Weekly Newsletter published by
TNNWC). But when you've finished playing with them, please put them back where they belong.
Faithfully,
Douglas E Castle
Chairman of TNNWC Group, LLC,
Corporate Negotiator, and
Author of Braintenance
p.s.
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