Austin Ross

Hello. “Near miss” is not an oxymoron.

If two objects achieve close vicinity to each other at high velocity without touching, the objects are near each other, and they missed each other. Thus, ‘near miss.’

“Nearly missed” could be more oxymoronic, but a literal interpretation clears up confusion. “nearly missed” doesn’t mean “almost missed,” it means “missed very close to target.”

There, now you’ve nearly missed some grammatical misinformation.