Popular oxymora

A Fine Mess A just war A little big a little pregnant A new classic absolutely unsure

abundant poverty advanced beginner alone in a crowd almost totally alone together awfully good awfully nice

Awfully pretty baby giant beyond infinity big baby born dead calm storm

Hyperbole

"My sister uses so much makeup,...

"she broke a chisel trying to get it off last night!" Johnny, from Prescott Middle School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

"she bought out Mary Kay just to have enough makeup for one day!" Andrea, from somewhere in South Dakota

"Marilyn Manson freaked out when he saw her!" Nizam, from Bukit Panjang Gov't H. S., Singapore

"when she takes it off, my mom doesn't recognize her." Ashley, from Knoxville, Tennessee

"she has to use a sandblaster to get it off at night." Margaret

"that I haven't seen her real face for years ..." Nivedita

"when she smiles her cheeks fall off." Ed

"she leaves a colour trail behind her when she walks!" Grant K.

"you can't tell where the face begins and ends!" Cara K.

"when she smiles, cracks the size of the Grand Canyon form in the surface." Ashley Brosseau

"by the time she gets it all on, it's time to take it off!" Josh W.

"she weighs 50 pounds more when she's done!" Alex

"at night she has to get the paint scraper to take it off." Beth Atkins

"when she takes it off she loses 30 pounds!" Benny H.

"she could pass as a clown at the circus." Adriene T.

"the artist formerly known as Prince gets ideas from her." Ashley Christine

"you could scrape off just the outer layer and put it on five other girls." Scott J.

"she looks like my

Zeugma

Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,

Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea.

Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (Pope was speaking of Queen Anne and Kensington Palace; it should be born in mind that in Pope's time, "tea" was pronounced "tay" and thus rhymed with "obey.")

He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men.

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Syllepsis can be used with idiomatic phrases to achieve a similar result:

If we don't hang together, we shall hang separately. Benjamin Franklin

You held your breath and the door for me. Alanis Morissette, Head over Feet

I took her hand and then an aspirin in the morning,

I took her hand and took her home. Eve 6, "Girl Eyes"

"Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London." (from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde) Cecily is making a catty remark to Miss Fairfax, a Londoner, by using "common" in two senses, namely "numerous" and "vulgar".

"The Russian grandees came to Elizabeth's court dropping pearls and vermin." Macaulay tells us here in one short phrase a great deal about the Russian grandees.

"Are you getting fit or having one?" (from the television program M*A*S*H)

"You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit." (from the television program Star Trek: The Next Generation)