Dear Organlearners
Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET> writes in LO15798:
> > OXYMORONS
> >
> > Advanced BASIC
> > Genuine imitation
> > Good grief
> > Same difference
> > Almost exactly
> > Alone together
> > Silent scream
> > Living dead
> > New classic
> > Sweet sorrow
> > Passive aggression
> > Clearly misunderstood
> > Peace force
> > Terribly pleased
> > Pretty ugly
> I cut a couple from this post due to the issue of audience offence
> overwhelming the message.
Ray, I have even cut from your post, but left enough for readers to act as
examples of a very interesting pehnomenon which I want to draw their
attention to.
In my own mother tongue Afrikaans such "oxymorons" (hyoerbolics) play a
vital role to affect emergences!
First, something about Afrikaans. It is language which emerged 300 years
ago in the southern tip of Africa. Its volcabulary has been derived mainly
from the lowlandic languages High Dutch, Low Saxon and Frisian whith a
minor contribution from the indigenous languages (Khoi, Banthu) as well as
Malay (slave era). But its grammer has changed considerably to serve all
its speakers (Europeans, Africans and Asians). Conjugations and
declinations have almost dissappeared. New words can be constructed with
amasing ease. And it acquired "oxymorons", but in a extraodinay sense.
For example, consider the degrees of comparison:
Afr- mooi, mooier, mooiste, verskriklik mooi
Eng- pretty, prettier, prettiest, terrribly pretty
In other languages, the superlative degree sets the limit. But not in
Afrikaans. In Afrikaans the "oxymoron" pushes the correspondence
beyond the superlative degree right over the edge to assist the
emergence of a deeper meaning.
The "oxymorons" work as follows in Afrikaans. Their dissonant or
contradictive composition is an entropy producing force., creating chaos
of becoming. It is possible to build three to four such "oxymorons" in a
sentence and several such sentences in a paragraph. Twenty or more
oxymorons in a paragraph less than 200 words saturate the mind with chaos
of becoming, thus forcing a bifucrcation point.
To translate this paragraph into English, Dutch, German or a Bantu
language is a nightmare. To someone who does not sepak Afrikaans as mother
tongue, these "oxymorons" almsot appear as a "Conspiracy in Complexity".
But to hear such a paragraph in Afrikaans sweeps the hearer of the feet to
soar into places unknown before, causing ecstacy.
Several black people have told me that they will use "oxymorons" in their
Bantu languages only in a tight family unit where love, compassion and
understanding abounds. But when they have to speak in Afrikaans, they make
use of it even to strangers. In fact, when a Tswana speaking person wish
to employ an oxymoron while speaking to a stranger in Tswana, s/he will
momentarily switch over to Afrikaans!
I have worked through several of Beethoven's sonatas and discovered to my
delight how he makes use of "musical oxymorons" to change into an even
higher gear, to introduce even more complexity when one almost thought
that the top gear had been reached.
I have also observed the use of "oxymorons" in Afrikaans in the
articulation of tacit kwowledge, in logical reasoning and in spiritual
reconnaissance.
A interesting "oxymoron" used in practical chemistry is to weigh
"approximately exact" an amount of a substance. Afrikaans speaking
students quickly grasp the meaning, but speakers of other languages battle
many hours to understand what is meant.
Ray, do the Native American Indians (you still owe me a word to use in the
place of this term or the other term "red skins") in their langauges? How
often do they make use of it and to what effect?
Best wishes,
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>