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I confess – he did it
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I confess – he did it
  Ox•y•mo•ron n. A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined. My American Heritage Dictionary fails to mention how funny oxymora are. The late, great George Carlin built a long, successful comedy career on them: "What the hell do you need a hot water heater for? Hot water doesn't need heating."  Carlin had a long list of oxymora: "closed fist," "plastic glass," "holy war," "military intelligence" — and redundancies, such as "raw sewage" ("Do some people cook the stuff?"). I have an addition to the redundancies list: “self-confessed.” You read and hear this phrase frequently, from news people who should know better, talking about a self-confessed hit man, a self-confessed madam, or a self-confessed swindler. I don’t know why news people feel the need to point out that the hitman, madam or swindler was the one who confessed to being a hitman, madam or swindler. They are the only ones who could confess to being a hitman, madam or swindler. If you confess that someone else is a hitman, madam or swindler, that’s not a confession—it’s an accusation. Also known as slander, libel, or “fightin’ words.”  Here’s another beef I have with newscasters (I know, but I’ll get tired of picking on them soon, and turn on some other group): Inflection. What writers do with italics, broadcasters do with inflection. Trouble is, they often use inflection to keep from sonding monotonous, rather than because it’s warranted. Like this, heard on a local TV newscast: “The woman was killed while she slept in her own home.” This indicates it was rare for the woman to sleep in her own home. Talk about adding insult to injury.  One I especially liked was, “the man used his own body as a shield.” If he’d used someone else’s body, that would make it a whole different story, wouldn’t it? Other words mis- and overused by journalists, both print and broadcast:  Bizarre (“very strange or unusual”). Traffic accidents in Houston are almost never bizarre, despite what newscasters would have you believe. Freak (“unusual and unexpected event”). See the above. These words describe special things, and should be used sparingly. But evidently, once you use the phrases “bizarre accident” and “freak accident,” the combinations are seared into your brain and the individual words can no longer be used singly. Like gunshots that can never simply be fired, but must always “ring out.”  Decimated (“reduced by one-tenth”). In a pinch, the dictionary acknowledges you may use decimated to mean “greatly reduced.” But there is no “completely decimated.” Probably what those newscasters wanted was “completely devastated,” or “completely destroyed,” in both of which phrases, “completely” is completely unnecessary. I’m almost done. There’s just one more thing. I am sick and tired of hearing TV reporters talk about hail that is “ping pong ball-sized” and larger, and not seeing pictures. In Tulsa, where I grew up, I saw a lot of hailstorms. Only one had hail big enough to dent cars. It was about the size of shooter marbles, and it stayed on the ground for hours, even on a warm day. There was plenty of time to get pictures.  So newscasters: Don’t talk about softball- and grapefruit-sized hail anymore, unless you’ve got a picture of it. I don’t believe you, and if you persist, I will tell the story of the toaster oven-sized hail that I witnessed in the summer of ‘74. One crashed through the ceiling in the bathroom and landed right in the bathtub, and stayed there for eight days. We filled the tub with beer and soda and invited all our friends over. But we forgot to take any pictures.  |
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