Ok so tonight I’m banging on again about our language, and the crazy stupid things we say without even thinking twice about the paradox….no wonder we’re all confused.
Today I was more than a little amused when I actually tuned into the stream of contradictions. …all day long I’ve been surrounded by oxymorons (and I’m not even talking about Tony Abbott).
The day started with a TV report on the ‘small crowd’ that turned out (to see someone-or-other…who cares?)…and then the breakfast crew were laughing at their own ‘seriously funny’ jokes… When I got to the office the talk was all about ‘health promotion-prevention’ and ‘ill health’ (someone please remind me how THAT can be…. and I work there!!).
As the evening settled in, we talked about a ‘pretty ugly’ puppy that I saw… the fact that a friend was going on a ‘working holiday’ … then finally I heard an advert for a movie about the American ‘civil war’!
Perhaps it pays not to over-think it… for fear that nothing will make any sense.
Wonder Years 
Yes, we who speak the ‘native tongue’ (sounds very primal doesn’t it?…) anyway, yes we who speak the ‘native tongue’ do tend to whack whatever we want together to try to articulate whatever we mean and assume the listener is not going to be assessing our grammar but will be trying to simply understand what we are trying to say…I find ESL learners are often much more perfect in their English than we are, and often (only due to their intense curiosity and passion for getting English perfect) sadly leave us to shame…