What Is an Oxymoron?
3. Pretty Ugly
Beginning a sentence with “pretty” is similar to how we would sometimes start a sentence with “awfully.” When used as shown above, the term actually means “rather ugly.” Of course, pretty is the opposite of ugly and something, or somebody, cannot be both at the same time.
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It is a fairly common usage of the word, and other examples include “pretty good,” or “pretty fast,” although these are not oxymorons. Whether or not a person or object is pretty is also very subjective, so people may not always agree with it regardless of the contradiction. This usage of the word is used in most English colloquialisms.
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