Oxymoron

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Thu, 24 Mar 2005 10:37:45 -0500,
  Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> writes

>  The latest OED draft entry has cites back to 1902 for the general sense of
>  'a contradiction in terms', but a quick look at Newspaperarchive suggests
>  that this sense wasn't popularized until the mid-'70s.

I learned the word "oxymoron" during the 1965-66 school year from my freshman
American Literature professor.  I cannot recall his exact words so I cannot
say whether he defined it as a deliberate rhetorical figure (is that what you
meant?)  or simply as "a contradiction in terms", but ever since then I have
used it with the latter meaning.  The next time I recall using "oxymoron" was in
a statistics class in the early 1970's, when the instructor used the term
"normal deviates" (yes, that is a technical term in statistics) and paused to
comment on its being a contradiction, as was "cells multiply by dividing".  The
class contributed a few more, including "Catholic parochial school."

Here's a cross-check.  The American Lit professor was Frederick Reeve, who
sometime before 1965 worked on Webster's New World Dictionary.  You might check
an early edition of WNWD (I have a copy but I can't find it at the moment) and
see how it defines "oxymoron".

OT:  "you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think" was used in
one of Spider Robinson's "Callahan's Bar" stories in Analog Science Fiction
sometime in the late 1970's or possibly early 1980's.  Robinson prides himself
(with good cause) as a punster, so he probably originated that punch line, or at
least thought he did.  However, that does not rule out Dorothy Parker having
originated it independently at an earlier date.

MAD magazine circa 1960 had as the motto of unreconstructed Confederates "If
at first you don't secede, try try again".  Which reminds me, my father was
fond of the word "unreconstructed" meaning "reactionary", "antediluvian" etc,
and I picked it up from him (as in the previous sentence)  Is this a common
usage?

     - James A. Landau