Oxymoron

THEORY REVISION

1. What is antonomasia? What meanings interact in its formation?

2. What types of antonomasia do you know? Give examples of each.

3. Do you remember any speaking names from the books you have read?

4. Give examples of personages' names used as qualifying common nouns.

Exercise I. Analyse the following cases of antonomasia. State the type of meaning employed and implied; indicate what additional information is created by the use of antonomasia; pay attention to the morphological and semantic characteristics of common nouns used as proper names:

1. "You cheat, you no-good cheat - you tricked our son. Took our son with a scheming trick, Miss Tomboy, Miss Sarcastic, Miss Sncerface." (Ph. R.)

2. A stout middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting on the edge of a great table. I turned to him.

"Don't ask me," said Mr. Owl Eyes washing his hands of the whole matter. (Sc.F.)

3. To attend major sports event most parents have arrived. A Colonel Sidebotham was standing next to Prendergast, firmly holding the tape with "FINISH". "Capital," said Mr. Prendergast, and dropping his end of the tape, he sauntered to the Colonel. "I can see you are a fine judge of the race, sir. So was I once. So's Grimes. A capital fellow, Grimes; a bounder, you know, but a capital fellow. Bounders can be capital fellows; don't you agree. Colonel Slidebottom... I wish you'd stop pulling at my arm, Pennyfeather. Colonel Shybottom and I are just having a most interesting conversation." (E.W.)

4. I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I know);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,

I send them east and west;

But after they have worked for me

I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views.

I know a person small -

She keeps ten million serving-men,

Who get no rest at all.

She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,

From the second she opens her eyes -

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys. (R. K.)

5. "Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon." "I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure, that

Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster without being a myth."(O.W.)

6. Our secretary is Esther D'Eath. Her name is pronounced by vulgar relatives as Dearth, some of us pronounce it Deeth. (S. Ch.)

7. When Omar P. Quill died, his solicitors referred to him always as O.P.Q. Each reference to O.P.Q. made Roger think of his grandfather as the middle of the alphabet. (G. M.)

8. "Your fur and his Caddy are a perfect match. I respect history: don't you know that Detroit was founded by Sir Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, French fur trader." (J.O'H.)

9. Now let me introduce you - that's Mr. What's-his-name, you remember him, don't you? And over there in the corner, that's the Major, and there's Mr. What-d'you-call-him, and that's an American. (E.W.)

10. Cats and canaries had added to the already stale house an entirely new dimension of defeat. As I stepped down, an evil-looking Tom slid by us into the house. (W.G1.)

11. Kate kept him because she knew he would do anything in the world if he were paid to do it or was afraid not to do it. She had no illusions about him. In her business Joes were necessary. (J. St.)

12. In the moon-landing year what choice is there for Mr. and Mrs. Average-the programme against poverty or the ambitious NASA project? (M.St.)

13. The next speaker was a tall gloomy man. Sir Something Somebody. (P.)

14. We sat down at a table with two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. (Sc.F.)

15. She's been in a bedroom with one of the young Italians, Count Something. (I.Sh.)

THEORY REVISION

1. What meaning is foregrounded in a hyperbole?

2. What types of hyperbole can you name?

3. What makes a hyperbole trite and where are trite hyperboles predominantly used?

4. What is understatement? In what way does it differ from hyperbole?

5. Recollect cases of vivid original hyperboles or understatements from your English reading.

Exercise II. In the following examples concentrate on cases of hyperbole and understatement. Pay attention to their originality or stateness, to other SDs promoting their effect, to exact words containing the foregrounded emotive meaning:

1. I was scared to death when he entered the room. (S.)

2. The girls were dressed to kill. (J.Br.)

3. Newspapers are the organs of individual men who have jockeyed themselves to be party leaders, in countries where a new party is born every hour over a glass of beer in the nearest cafe. (J.R.)

4. I was violently sympathetic, as usual. (Jn.B.)

5. Four loudspeakers attached to the flagpole emitted a shattering roar of what Benjamin could hardly call music, as if it were played by a collection of brass bands, a few hundred fire engines, a thousand blacksmiths' hammers and the amplified reproduction of a force-twelve wind. (A. S.)

6. The car which picked me up on that particular guilty evening was a Cadillac limousine about seventy-three blocks long. (J.B.)

7. Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. (Sc.F.)

8. He didn't appear like the same man; then he was all milk and honey - now he was all starch and vinegar. (D.)

9. She was a giant of a woman. Her bulging figure was encased in a green crepe dress and her feet overflowed in red shoes. She carried a mammoth red pocketbook that bulged throughout as if it were stuffed with rocks. (Fl. O'C.)

10. She was very much upset by the catastrophe that had befallen the Bishops, but it was exciting, and she was tickled to death to have someone fresh to whom she could tell all about it. (S.M.)

11. Babbitt's preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self during the hour and a half of his lunch-period were somewhat less elaborate than the plans for a general European War. (S.M.)

12. The little woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle. (G.)

13. We danced on the handkerchief-big space between the speakeasy tables. (R.W.)

14. She wore a pink hat, the size of a button. (J.R.)

15. She was a sparrow of a woman. (Ph. L.)

16. And if either of us should lean toward the other, even a fraction of an inch, the balance would be upset. (O.W.)

17. He smiled back, breathing a memory of gin at me. (W.G.)

18. About a very small man in the Navy: this new sailor stood five feet nothing in sea boots. (Th.P.)

19. She busted herself in her midget kitchen. (T.C.)

20. The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air. (T.C.)

THEORY REVISION

1. What is an oxymoron and what meanings are foregrounded in its formation?

2. Why are there comparatively few trite oxymorons and where are they mainly used?

3. Give some examples of trite oxymorons.

Exercise III. In the following sentences pay attention to the structure and semantics of oxymorons. Also indicate which of their members conveys the individually viewed feature of the object and which one reflects its generally accepted characteristic:

1. He caught a ride home to the crowded loneliness of the barracks. (J.)

2. Sprinting towards the elevator he felt amazed at his own cowardly courage. (G. M.)

3. They were a bloody miserable lot - the miserablest lot of men I ever saw. But they were good to me. Bloody good. (J. St.)

4. He behaved pretty busily to Jan. (D. C.)

5. Well might he perceive the hanging of her hair in fairest quantity in locks, some curled and some as if it were forgotten, with such a careless care and an art so hiding art that it seemed she would lay them for a pattern. (Ph. S.)

6. There were some bookcases of superbly unreadable books. (E.W.)

7. Absorbed as we were in the pleasures of travel - and I in my modest pride at being the only examinee to cause a commotion - we were over the old Bridge. (W.G.)

8. "Heaven must be the hell of a place. Nothing but repentant sinners up there, isn't it?" (Sh. D.)

9. Harriet turned back across the dim garden. The lightless light looked down from the night sky. (I.M.)

10. Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy; Rozzie was a disease, my worst friend. (J. Car.)

11. It was an open secret that Ray had been ripping his father-in-law off. (D.U.)

12. A neon sign reads "Welcome to Reno - the biggest little town in the world." (A. M.)

13. Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield are Good Bad Boys of American literature. (V.)

14. Haven't we here the young middle-aged woman who cannot quite compete with the paid models in the fashion magazine but who yet catches our eye? (Jn. H.)

15. Their bitter-sweet union did not last long. (A. C.)

16. He was sure the whites could detect his adoring hatred of them. (Wr.)

17. You have got two beautiful bad examples for parents. (Sc.F.)

18. He opened up a wooden garage. The doors creaked. The garage was full of nothing. (R.Ch.)

19. She was a damned nice woman, too. (H.)

20. A very likeable young man with a pleasantly ugly face. (A. C.)

Лабораторная работа № 7. (2 ч.)