Oxymoron Antonyms: Why Say Two Words ... Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Pleonasms are used in everyday speech without us realising we may have spoken one. Which of the following common phrases is not an example of a pleonasm (redundant phrasing)?

Answer: Acceptable losses

"Acceptable losses" is an oxymoron. No losses are acceptable. The other three answers are pleonasms. What is a fire if it is not burning? A guest by definition is invited. Does not a result decide something? Then you must be at the end. Most of these sayings are a part of our everyday speech patterns, we do not realize we are using pleonasms. "Common bond", often found in Fun Trivia pages amongst others is also a pleonasm.

2. A pleonasm is also considered to be a tautology, although the word tautology means "excessive phrasing", and therefore is more general than the redundant phrasing of a pleonasm. Tautologies are often found in legal documents as legal language contains a mixture of both English phrases with French and Latin phrases. They often contain one word derived from the English language and one from the French or Latin language. Also, one word is used to define the other word in legal documents. Which one of the following does not include a tautology?

Answer: Stand and deliver

"Stand and deliver" is not a tautology. It is alleged to be the phrase given by highwaymen when robbing coaches and the like. it contains two actions: "Stand up and deliver valuables".
The other three options are tautologies. Each word means the same as the other. Etymologically, you will notice there is a Latin-derived term and a French-derived term in each couplet.

3. Often juxtaposing one language with another causes inadvertent pleonasms. The following physical features are all pleonasm except one. Which one?

Answer: Mt Fuji (Japan)

In three of these cases English has been used to add a physical characteristic onto a native description, where the native description includes the physical characteristic. Hence Lake Nyas� literally means "Lake Lake" and Connecticut River means Long Tidal River River. "Maunga" means Mountain in Maori, "nui" means big so Mt Maunganui mean Mountain Mountain big". Mount Fuji is correctly named, but if it is referred to as Mt Fujiyama, which was common in the recent past, this is a pleonasm as "-yama" means mountain.

When in Japan, the correct way of referring to it is simply "Fujiyama".

4. Sometimes we may not realize we use pleonasms every day. Which one of the following phrases is NOT a pleonasm?

Answer: Irregular pattern

An irregular pattern does not exist. Either it's a pattern or it is irregular. This is an oxymoron. The others are pleonasms. In each case the adjective or adverb is redundant; "mask", "mix" and "fall" can all stand alone. The additional word adds no further meaning and is therefore a pleonasm.

5. Sometimes oxymorons and pleonasms are hard to tell apart when, indeed, they are antonyms. Which one of the following phrases is the pleonasm?

Answer: Closed fist

Closed fist is a pleonasm. An open fist is a "hand". The other examples, whilst they feature in everyday speech are, strictly speaking, oxymorons.

6. Consider the words "planning", "reservation" and "warning". Which one of the options below when added before each of the three words, would create pleonasms in each case?

Answer: Both options

"Pre-planning", "pre-warning" and "pre-reservations" have been used in everyday speech, as have "advanced planning", "advanced reservations" and "advanced warning". All are pleonasms.

7. Pleonasms abound in the literature. Consider these examples from Samuel Beckett, William Shakespeare, Raymond Chandler and John Milton. Only one option does *NOT* contain a pleonasm. Which one?

Answer: "Darkness visible"

"Darkness visible" is from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" (1667), and is an oxymoron since darkness is the absence of visibility.

"Poodle dogs", from Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" (1939), is a pleonasm, as there are no poodles that are not dogs.
"Most unkindest", is from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is a double superlative case, and hence a pleonasm.
"When social workers offer you, free, gratis and for nothing, something to hinder you", which is from Samuel Beckett's "Molloy" (1951), contains two pleonasms.

Even the Bible is not without a pleonasm - "Many are rising against me" (Psalm 3:1, NIV).

8. There are two types of pleonasm. In syntactic pleonasms, the grammar of a sentence makes certain words redundant. "I know that you are going to the theater with John". Which word is the pleonasm?

Answer: that

To test if a word is a syntactic pleonasm, remove the word from the sentence. It should still make sense. If we remove "that" from the sentence, it now reads "I know you are going to the theater with John. It still makes sense. therefore "that" is a syntactic pleonasm.

This does not happen very often in English but in some languages, such as Italian and Spanish, which are null-subject languages, pronouns can be dropped as the suffix of the verb tells us what the pronoun is. For example "Yo te amo" means "I love you" but the ending on the verb "amo" informs us what the pronoun is (Yo) and it is a pleonasm if used. "Te amo" is the conventional form.

9. Semantic pleonasms come in two forms: overlap semantic pleonasms, where one word's semantic component is subsumed by the other ("I ate a tuna fish sandwich") and prolixity semantic pleonasms, which have words that add nothing relevant to the meaning of the sentence. Which one of the following is not an example of a prolixity semantic pleonasm?

Answer: "Get a free gift with every purchase"

"We watched the bear climb up the tree" makes just as much sense as "We watched the bear climb up from the bottom of the tree", so "from the bottom of the tree" is a prolixity semantic pleonasm

"I'm going North" makes perfect sense, so in "I'm going up North" the word "up" is a prolixity semantic pleonasm.

"Where are you?" is clearly the same as "Where are you at?", so the word "at" is a prolixity semantic pleonasm.

In "Get a free gift with every purchase", free is an overlap semantic pleonasm - if it weren't free, it wouldn't be a gift.

10. Now that the scope of pleonasms has been discussed, for the final question can you determine which one of the following options is the oxymoron amongst the pleonasms (oxymoron antonyms)?

Answer: deafening silence

"Collaboration", "impulse" and "may" all stand alone in the examples above - a good test to detect pleonasms.

"Deafening silence" contains two contradictory words. Therefore the phrase is an oxymoron. Moreover, it has been used to excess, so it is also has become a cliche.

Source: Author 1nn1

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

A pleonasm is the opposite of an oxymoron (which involves contradicting terms used together). Pleonasms are redundant phraseology. If the title of this quiz was "Pleonasms and Redundant Phrasing", this would be a pleonasm.

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>