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Ridiculous
To be ridiculous is to be something which is highly incongruous or inferior, sometimes deliberately so to make people laugh or get their attention, and sometimes unintendedly so as to be considered laughable and earn or provoke ridicule and derision. It comes from the 1540s Latin "ridiculosus" meaning "laughable", from "ridiculus" meaning "that which excites laughter", and from "ridere" meaning "to laugh". "Ridiculous" is an adjective describing "the ridiculous". In common usage, "ridiculousness" is used as a synonym for absurdity or nonsense. From a historical and technical viewpoint, "absurdity" is associated with argumentation and reasoning, "nonsense" with semantics and meaning, while "ridiculous" is most associated with laughter, superiority, deformity, and incongruity. ''Reductio ad absurdum'' is a valid method of argument, while '' reductio ad ridiculum'' is invalid. Argument by invective declaration of ridiculous is invalid, while arguments involving declarations of nons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absurdity
An absurdity is a state or condition of being extremely unreasonable, meaningless or unsound in reason so as to be irrational or not taken seriously. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at the absurd situation." It derives from the Latin ''absurdum'' meaning "out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin ''surdus'' means "deaf", implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with being realistic or reasonable In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with fanciful, foolish, bizarre, wild or nonsense. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Absurdism is a concept in philosophy related to the notion of absurdity. History Absurdity has been used throughout history regarding foolishness and extremely poor reasoning to form b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
