34

I saw "recent past" included in a page of supposed oxymorons posted on Facebook, with people yukking it up while apparently badly misunderstanding what an oxymoron is. One well-meaning but confused gentleman pointed me to a link to a different page also claiming that "recent past" is an oxymoron.

This seems ultra-simple to me: the two words have to be in apparent conflict, but they're simply not. I tried to give a helpful example (having gone to the store yesterday) but think the people arguing with me may still not understand.

Am I wrong?

nobody
  • 107
Iucounu
  • 988
  • 8
  • 14
  • 13
    If recent cannot be in the present or future, when would recent things occur if not the past, but, er, the recent past? You are not wrong, you are right. – Yosef Baskin Jul 17 '17 at 03:15
  • 3
    You are right. Exactly what is the recent past depends on what you are talking about and your perspective. It could be yesterday, or it could be years ago. In the recent past -- pre-Google -- we had to look up everything in books. Recent to me, Dark Ages to someone else. Also note that the past could be one second ago. One picosecond ago. Even less. – ab2 Jul 17 '17 at 03:22
  • 5
    Maybe, perhaps, you might considerer that as redundant within some special context. In general, that's not even redundant, only more explicit. The past that you are referring to can be distant, one million years ago, or recent, only a few years ago. How is this redundant or oxymoronic? Occam's razor: Some people don't understand the words they are using, such as oxymoron. – Alex Sarmiento Jul 17 '17 at 03:24
  • 6
    In fact, in English we don't say "recent future", we say *near* future and in the not too *distant* future. And would they find the following phrase oxymoronic: "D.Trump *recently visited* France." – Mari-Lou A Jul 17 '17 at 03:49
  • 5
    I think it could be considered a pleonasm rather than an oxymoron, based on the fact that something that happened recently obviously happened in the past, the issue not being about recently modifying past but rather about past being applied while we already know an event was in the past because of the presence of recent. This would, imho, only make sense if recent could be used instead of recent past, which it can't. – oerkelens Jul 17 '17 at 10:51
  • 3
    In fact only things that are in the past can be described as "recent." – Casey Jul 17 '17 at 13:21
  • 1
    Why does this have so many upvotes? 'recent' and 'past' are not even opposites. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jul 17 '17 at 16:48
  • 1
    @Alex Sarmiento: But if you're discussing geology or paleontology, a million years IS the recent past :-) – jamesqf Jul 17 '17 at 17:31
  • 2
    Of course it's not an oxymoron. perhaps a definition would be good, but 'recent past' will never be an oxymoron. Only a moron would think so... – Tim Jul 17 '17 at 18:20
  • 7
    The real oxymoron is intelligent facebook discussion... – corsiKa Jul 17 '17 at 22:06
  • "Jumbo shrimp" is not really a contradiction, e.g, because "shrimp" refers to the animal rather than size. It shows up on every canonical list of oxymorons because, as a play on words, it's funny anyway. It seems like your complaint is that "recent past" isn't a very funny oxymoron. Opinions vary. – Jeremy Nottingham Jul 17 '17 at 22:30
  • @Mari-LouA: Regarding "the not too distant future," would next Sunday, AD qualify? – Jocelyn H Jul 18 '17 at 16:27
  • Your question raises another in my mind. What do you mean by "people yukking it up"? In sixty years (I'm British) I've never heard this expression. – Nicole Jul 20 '17 at 18:17
  • @Nicole HTH :) http://lmgtfy.com/?q=yuk+it+up – Iucounu Jul 20 '17 at 22:43
  • @Iucounu Ahh. Now I understand. It's regional dialect. – Nicole Jul 22 '17 at 11:20
  • 1
    Collins gives a headed entry and example sentences. Cambridge Dictionary gives the collocation with many examples. // 'Recently in the past' is a tautology, but 'recent past' is a 'proper subset' of 'past'. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 23 '24 at 11:25
  • An oxymoron is often defined as something that's superficially or at first glance a paradox or self-contradictory. Many things are very superficially paradoxes in this sense, e.g. "He's a little tall", "It's pretty ugly". – Stuart F Mar 23 '24 at 12:18

5 Answers5

57

No. You are correct. It is both common and acceptable to qualify the past as the distant past or the recent past.

Mathieu K.
  • 1,098
  • 19
    You aren't wrong, but this answer would be much stronger with any kind of evidence or sources. I doubt a bare assertion is going to do it for the folks who genuinely think this is an oxymoron. – 1006a Jul 17 '17 at 12:28
  • 24
    @1006a, OP said this came out of a Facebook post. Have you ever tried to convince someone on Facebook they were wrong? No amount of evidence or sources will help. :) –  Jul 17 '17 at 13:39
  • 9
    @tilper I didn't mean the OP's nemeses, I meant anyone who is genuinely wondering and turns to ELU for a definitive answer. We're supposed to be creating answers that are generally applicable/helpful, not just reassuring a single asker that what he/she already knew is correct. Even a few dictionary definitions would be a big improvement, and a few lines of text explaining how those definitions apply to this phrase would be great. – 1006a Jul 17 '17 at 13:58
  • 2
    I do believe I left a comment earlier this morning asking the OP to consider explaining why, but for some mysterious reason, users must have flagged it and it was deleted. – Mari-Lou A Jul 17 '17 at 14:13
  • I agree that sources would help. I couldn't think of them at the time and still can't; as I recall I was answering from the usage I'm familiar with. We say distant future and distant past, and we say near future but recent past. So, dear community, edit some useful stuff into my answer and I'll mark it community-wiki. – Mathieu K. Apr 23 '18 at 04:14
17

You are correct about usage: it is not an oxymoron, because "recent" and "past" are not in opposition. The word "past" in that phrase is, to an extent, redundant. An oxymoron would be an instance of two words whose meanings suggest each other's opposite, or at least significantly dissimilar concepts. As a comment suggests, a phrase containing some redundancy such as "recent past" might be called a pleonasm, though I don't think it's a common term in regular conversation.

Darren Ringer
  • 523
  • 2
  • 7
  • It's not redundant. – Arm the good guys in America Jul 17 '17 at 15:17
  • 7
    @Clare How can something that happened "recently" ever not be in the past? Please don't mistake my use of the term "redundant" to imply "incorrect" - the phrase is a common one that I use myself and there is certainly more information provided by putting the words together. I'm just suggesting that some of the information in the word past is already implied by the word recent - hence, some redundancy. Regardless, I have edited my answer for some clarification and less strong wording. – Darren Ringer Jul 17 '17 at 16:01
  • Being redundant is where I would've taken my answer as well. – Jordan.J.D Jul 17 '17 at 16:53
  • 1
    It's not redundant because you can't talk about the past with just the word recent, and you can't distinguish between the recent past and the distant past without the word recent. Just like near future and distant future are also not redundant. How will you talk about the near future without using both words, and still fully specify what you mean? I think you might be a little confused... – ErikE Jul 18 '17 at 00:15
  • @ErikE Well I can assure you, there is no confusion here. It's not entirely redundant but there is absolutely redundancy in it. – Darren Ringer Jul 18 '17 at 00:31
  • @DarrenRinger You could address the points I made and explain how the words which I attempted to show are not redundant actually are, by expressing the same concept without using both the words (or synonyms of them). I used a reasoned argument, not mere assertion. – ErikE Jul 18 '17 at 00:32
  • 2
    Okay, if I say, "I went to the store recently," it is clearly an event that happened in the past. Thus, "I went to the store in the recent past" is a redundant way of saying "I went to the store recently". When I said "There is clearly more information provided by putting the words together" I was referring to the equivalent of adding "-ly" to "recent" (more than that, but I'm trying to keep this explanation simple). – Darren Ringer Jul 18 '17 at 00:32
  • Also, "future" does not imply "near" and "near" does not imply "future" but "recent" always implies "past". – Darren Ringer Jul 18 '17 at 00:35
  • 1
    "Recently" is a different word. It's an adverb, not an adjective. This is new information you didn't include in your post. I call foul! "Recently past" would be redundant because "recently" contains all the information that "recently past" does. But "recent" does not contain all the information that "recent past" does. Try: "I went to the store recent." I agree that using one word is more succinct, but that doesn't make it redundant. (I can say "Clown A is more funny" or "Clown A is funnier" but that doesn't make the former redundant. – ErikE Jul 18 '17 at 00:35
  • "Recently" doesn't imply "past" any more than "recent" does. If someone said "I went to the store recent" I would know what they meant just as well as if they were to say "I went to the store in the recent past". I can't imagine any confusion that would be clarified by either choice of words. – Darren Ringer Jul 18 '17 at 00:40
  • 6
    @ErikE: Semantically, "recent past" is redundant, because "past" isn't supplying any further information beyond what "recent" supplies. "Past" is only needed because it fills a syntactic role. When another noun fills that role, "past" is not needed: hence e.g. "in recent weeks" (no need for "in past recent weeks" or "in recent weeks past" or whatnot). – ruakh Jul 18 '17 at 01:00
  • 2
    "The recent events in Oceania..." would be another example to show how "recent" can be used sensibly without requiring "past". Also, I would not consider "recent" and "recently" to be entirely different words; they are different forms of the same word. They have the same core meaning and differ only in the way they are allowed to be used with other words. – Tim Sparkles Jul 18 '17 at 01:39
  • ErikE is bang on the money. It is not redundant at all. 'Recent events' and 'the recent past' do not have the same meaning at all, and neither does the 'the recent past' and 'recently'. The 'past' is necessary to define what is referred to. One could imagine an alternate English in which we say 'the recent' to mean 'the recent past' but that is not how the language actually works. – Jack Aidley Jul 18 '17 at 12:38
  • 1
    @JackAidley: What about "Recent events" and "events in the recent past"? To me both phrases have identical meaning. And even if your rulebooks of formally recognized grammar do not recognize "the recent" as meaning "the recent past", you'll find that based on how language in general works, most people find both to be synonymous. – Darren Ringer Jul 18 '17 at 12:47
  • @DarrenRinger: To me "recent events" would refer to events much closer in the past than "events in the recent past", although the meaning of both is subject to context. – Jack Aidley Jul 18 '17 at 13:06
  • 1
    I find it quite entertaining that a supposed oxymoron comes out as a pleonasm instead. People should be more aware of pleonasms, as they are much more important lexically than oxymora. – IS4 Jul 18 '17 at 14:12
  • 1
    @IllidanS4: I think most people know them as tautologies rather than pleonasms? – Jack Aidley Jul 18 '17 at 15:06
0

I cannot see why it is wrong to modify the noun past with the adjective recent. It conveys to me the idea of a time neither recent nor in the remote or undetermined past but somewhere in between.

Aled Cymro
  • 511
0

"recent past" as compared to "distant past".

Both are "past", but "recent" is closer to present than "distant". So both "recent" and "distant" are valid qualifiers for "past", so not an oxymoron.

Peter M. - stands for Monica
  • 191
0

I do not know what a facebook is but but it must have been written by morons if it says that 'recent past' is an oxymoron. As you are no doubt aware, Italian names two past tenses with the recent and distant (historic) distinction: passato remoto and passato prossimo.

David
  • 12,625