Word: oxymoron
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...would have to adopt an entirely new form of discipline, one in which conformity would be secondary to personal initiative and common sense. Whether such a posture would be militarily effective is a question for the psychologists, but I suspect that "volunteer army" will remain a politician's oxymoron for some time to come...
Illusive Meaning. In his own mischievous and amiable way, Barth is seeking what has been called "the coincidence of apposites," those meanings that are beyond the ability of value-burdened words to express fully. Sometimes an illusive meaning can be momentarily grasped with an oxymoron-the joining of two mutually contradictory words. Barth's "printed voice" belongs in this category, along with Capote's "nonfiction novel" and Detroit's "hardtop convertible." Clearly-or un-clearly-Lost in the Funhouse is a work of highly significant irrelevance...