5 February 2022 – I do not expect an oxymoron to ambush me, right here in the aisles of retail consumerism.
Oxymoron, after all, is mental/linguistic. It is, as the Oxford Dictionary reminds us: “a phrase that combines two words that seem to be the opposite of each other, such as ‘a deafening silence’.”
Examples abound, including the much-quoted “military intelligence” — and my personal favourite, “quite unique.”
Bah. Forget all that brainy stuff. Today the oxymoron got physical.
17 January 2022 – Here at the hair salon, everyone is vaxxed, masked, distanced, and hand-sanitized. Fully compliant.
Fully compliant with the current hygiene/medical protocol required by our provincial government.
Those of us who favour one particular hair cutter, however, must comply with an additional protocol.
It is linguistic.
We talk a blue streak. We discuss ships and shoes and sealing wax … and Vancouver’s recent snow … and Toronto’s current snow … even the derivation of the word “orangutan” (from the Malay/Indonesian orang + utan, i.e. person + forest).
But not a word about you-know-what. It is wonderfully restful.
"Traveller, there is no path. Paths are made by walking" -- Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" -- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
"A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities" -- Rebecca Solnit, "Wanderlust: A History of Walking"
WALKING WOMAN 