Pleonasms and Oxymorons

Why You Should Avoid Oxymorons and  Pleonasms--Most of the Time

Most people know what an oxymoron is. It's a figure of speech that combines two words or terms that seem to be contradictory.

For example: wooden irons, old news, random order, extensive briefing, lining up in a circle.

But do you know what pleonasms are?

Pleonasms are sometimes called "baby puppies." They're separate words that are commonly used together in speech, but are actually redundant. A puppy, by definition, is a baby.

A baby dog is a puppy. A "baby puppy" is a pleonasm.

Other pleonasms include words like "close proximity," "combine together," "current incumbent," and "exact same."

Depending on your audience, using such oxymorons and pleonasms can damage your credibility as a speaker. It's like saying "nucular" instead of "nuclear," or "relator" instead of "realtor" and "irregardless" instead of "regardless." (See Frequently Mispronounced Words)

But Tom Antion, in this book Wake 'Em Up Business Presentations, describes several ways to use oxymorons and pleonasms to make a point in your speech.

Tom suggests,

"Use an oxymoron in conjunction with a simile to drive home a point that something is out of kilter. You could tell your audience

Acme company claims that their market share is increasing. Yet their sales are down while everyone else's are up. It's just like saying 'Jumbo shrimp." It doesn't make any sense."

Pleonasms can be used to keep your audience involved and interested in your presentation by asking them to come up with some of their own. I've done this on my radio show and you'd be amazed at how many people want to jump in with suggestions once you get the "ball rolling."

After you've gotten a few from the audience, you can connect pleonasms to something a competitor is doing. For instance, you could say

"XYZ Company claims to be making great forward strides. But their different new marketing efforts really just meander back and forth and all around and they will be left out in the freezing cold and they will flounder and sink below the surface."

Such rhetorical devices and techniques can raise attention levels among audience members and set you above and apart from other speakers.

And in the final end, that's positively good.

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