Media Morons

Oxymorons are expressions which contradict themselves, like “Facebook privacy.” The term “oxymoron” is itself an oxymoron, coming from Greek words meaning “sharp” and “stupid.”

We’ve noticed that the news media, and TV in particular, have created a number of phrases that have been repeated so often they’ve become clichés, to the point that changing the phrase creates a jarringly different meaning.

We’ll call such modified phrases media morons. Here are some examples.

• barren knoll
• seasonable weather
• gruntled employee
• sensible tragedy
• gentle murder
• actual perpetrator

Note that “media morons,” despite the appealing alliteration, is not an oxymoron. It may, in fact, be redundant.