What is irony, what lexical meaning is employed in its formation?

- a devil of sea

- a shadow of smile

- a devil of a job

- a dog of a fellow.

7. 
   What is an oxymoron and what meanings are foregrounded in its formation? A: Oxymoron is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words , terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means. For example, despairing hope, tender cruelty, glad mourning and sad joy. Oxymoron is a combination of two words in which meanings of the two clash, being opposite in sense, for example:
   

• 
  - sweet sorrow
  
• 
  - nice rascal
  
• 
  - pleasantly ugly face
  
• 
  - horribly beautiful
  
• 
  - horrible delight
  
• 
  - stormy silence
  

8. 
   Why are there comparatively few trite oxymorons and where are they mainly used?
   

A: Oxymorons rarely become trite, for their components, linked forcibly, repulse each other and oppose repeated use. There are few colloquial oxymorons, all of them show a high degree of the speaker’s emotional involvement in the situation, as in “awfully pretty”.The main stylistic function of oxymoron is to express the author's attitude to the things and phenomenon described
APPENDIX 2


Oxymoron
Assignment. 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.)
   

A: the crowded loneliness (adj+n)

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

A: cowardly courage (adv+n)

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.)
   

A: a bloody miserable lot (article+adj+adj+n) \\ Bloody good (adj+adj)

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

A: pretty busily(adj+adv)

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.)
   

A: a careless care (adj+n)

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

A: superbly unreadable (adv+adj)

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.
   

A: modest pride (adj+n)

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

A: repentant sinners (adj+n)

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

A: lightless light (adj+n)

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

A: my best enemy; my worst friend (adj+n)