Talk:Contradictio in terminis

Synonymous with Contradictio in adjecto?
This is the same thing as Contradictio in adjecto. Perhaps it should be added as a section describing it as synonymous? Then again, they could be two totally different terms, with how poorly this page is put together...

Lereveur (talk) 12:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the above comment is on the mark. I don't have the time to do anything about it, but I agree that some merging of these two pages makes sense.

What I did do was to clean up the page as it is now. The previous definition began with the phrase "a certain connection between two words in a group out of which it can be derived that," which struck me as being awkward and needlessly verbose.

I also removed the reference to "politically incorrect humor." First of all, the fact that a grammatical or syntactic structure can be used in a humorous way should by no means be mentioned in the article on that structure. (Should the article on nouns have a section informing the reader that many popular jokes rely upon the use of nouns, like "chicken" and "road"?) But perhaps more importantly, what is it about self-contradictory phrases that makes them intrinsically politically incorrect? This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Cal (talk) 17:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree, merge with Contradictio in adjecto. Btw, why aren't both part of oxymoron? Malick78 (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Obvious examples?
Examples given are "liquid ice", "settled science", "progressive conservatism", and "square circle". The two in the middle have a problem, I think. Although distinctive, science and conservatism are entities that have no single form or composition. Many aspects are involved, and for instance, it is possible for a group or a politician to combine a conservative framework with progressive elements, or to find new ways to conserve what's there. Also, science constantly is working to find the new thing, but this doesn't necessarily mean old structures or attitudes are of no influence on this striving; in research, debate, etcetera, scientists often reveal old patterns. In other words: the conflicting effects within these word combinations are not massive enough to be obvious contradictions. Apdency (talk) 18:46, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

political contraditio in terminis
I was quite surprised how quickly my example of a "communist state" as a contraditio in termnis was removed. Is there now an embargo on political examples of this phenomenon since the "progressive conservatism" thing? I mean, as far as political contradictiones go, "communist state" is a very clear and often encountred example. 77.161.101.98 12-4-2022 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.161.101.98 (talk) 20:52, 14 April 2022 (UTC)