2007-03-23 13:16:31 · 5 answers · asked by Mick 3 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
It means a hypothetical situation that it completely impossible: it will not happen.
2007-03-23 13:21:09 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you say "impossible" it is redundant to add the word hypothetical. Any impossible scenario is by definition hypothetical, since it can never happen in real life. (By contrast, every hypothetical scenario is not necessarily impossible, it is just something that is imagined, but may or may not have taken place in real life.)
2007-03-23 20:26:28 · answer #2 · answered by rollo_tomassi423 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
To me, it at first appears to indeed be an "oxymoron" in that there are two words which tend to negate each other.
However, looking closely at it, I'd like to offer this...
Albert Einstein came up with a whole lot of hypotheses - ideas that he had developed some scientific proof that indicated a possibility that they were "true". However, most of his hypotheses (which, through further academic work, have become theories) are patently "impossible" - like the idea that time slows as we travel at near light speed....well, they're impossible at the moment given our level of technology!
Maybe in some distant future time we will be able to develop a vehicle which will negate both the "impossibility" and the "hypothesis" of his Special Theory of Relativity....
Love and Light,
Jarrah
2007-03-23 20:39:45 · answer #3 · answered by jarrah_fortytwo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hypothetical: a hypothetical possibility
So you would be asking about an "impossible possible scenario" or "impossible scenario that might happen."
So that would be an oxymoron to me.
2007-03-23 20:23:04 · answer #4 · answered by Josh 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Don't bother answering the question
2007-03-23 20:24:31 · answer #5 · answered by John W 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋