Slashdot Mirror
Isn't It Ironic?
gessel writes "Have you ever used the word "ironic?" Do you know what it really means? If not, is that ironic? Was Seinfeld's "irony" really the cause of the utter collapse of civil society as we knew it? How ironic was it for the CEO of MTV to declare irony a victim of 9/11? The Guardian is running a brilliant article that clears the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word."
Insert lame Alanis Morsette joke here
I find it rather ironic that the Guardian is doing a story on irony... or do I?
:)
However, I don't find it ironic that Slashdot picked up that story...or don't it?
I dunno. I'm confused even more now.
My journal has hot
Keep in mind that it will not be ironic for you to post something that is not ironic, but claim that it is. That would just be moronic.
1400x1250 in a 640x480 world...
alanis morisette's song "ironic" was really called "just a series of coincidences", and didn't really fit the actual definition of irony.
and isn't it ironic..blah blah blah. except, not.
now that's ironic.
Here's the big irony for this article: somehow, someone felt that it belongs under a heading that includes the phrase "stuff that matters."
it's like an anonymous coward getting the first post...
why did slashdot post this story? its pointless... and quite stupid. This is what I would expect from fark.com
Do you ever find yourself humming the MacGuyver theme song? Then you my friend, are a true nerd.
Don't you have some kernel patches to write or something else more important to discuss?
Yes, that's the right use. It's ironic that many people already know and have seen what is supposed to be "news" thus making it not news.
I've seen this more and more. People who use ironic as a bussword, and as a synonym to "weird" or some such nonsense.
Of course, isn't it to be expected? People do stupider things.
I think that you are over analyzing everything.
or check out what this guy has to say.
In a recent South Park episode, Matt and Trey had the town under siege by greedy corporate Native Americans, intent on paving it over to make a highway from denver to their casino. The town won't sell out, so the Native American resort to rubbing blankets on SARS infected Chinese people and giving them to the townsfolk. One of the kids goes on a 'spirit-journey' using his culture's native vision-drug, huffing paint thinner, and he finds out that the cure for SARS is his culture's traditional medicine of Campbell's Chicken Soup, Nyquil, and Ginger Ale. The Chief's son also contracts SARS. The townsfolk give him the cure, and the chief gratefully gives them their town back.
Irony, as I understand it, is deliberatly saying the opposite of what you mean. No one really thinks Matt and Trey are trying to say that Native Americans are greedy soulless corporate scum.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
["Sweet Home Alabama" plays in background.]
Garland Greene: Define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.
But you self suffering wankers would confuse irony with a lack of appreciation of your own self importance. And I'm not sure if that is ironic or tragic.
If there's one term that, when used incorrectly, bugs me more than "irony", it's "AKA". I've often seen it misued as a replacement for "i.e." or "e.g." but there have been some worse offenders.
Example:
There are some OSes out there that really suck... AKA Windows 95
Or worse yet:
Man I'm tired from all of that work, AKA I partied all night.
Ugh.
From the article:
We have a grave problem with this word
Well, it so happens to be that we humans constantly shift the meaning of the words in our language. It is believed that the strongest driver of this is the universal appeal in appearing interesting to others.
Language teachers and writers of articles such as this fight a losing battle against such changes in language. Of course, in the long run, a word is defined by the people who use it and not by some dictionary from Oxford. The latter can be changed.
The guardians of language are often the biggest opponents of it's development and modernization. Isn't that ironic?
Tor
Sounds like Zoe Williams (the author of The Guardian article) is taking a line from Inigo Montoya:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
People seem to like to use the word because it sounds cool, or makes them sound smart, or because they heard their friend say it. Like "who will think of the children?" or "what would Jesus do?" They probably have no idea what they're saying about except that they heard it on TV once.
Isn't it ironic?
this is my sig
Headline:
"Slashdot, home of bad grammar and spelling, posts article about proper grammar. Rioting ensues."
I find it rather ironic that this article was too long to keep my attention...
scratch that; it's simply fitting...
Or does that prospect.org page have a ton of two dollar words, is this supposed to be for highly educated people? (I would like to think I have a large vocabulary, and I still had to dictionary.com some of the words). Perhaps the author likes to make themself look smart, or perhaps I'm just used to local newspapers that are written for an 8th grade comprehension level.
Slashdot is discussing proper English usage.
by sending them to Wookie Love!
(They're probably the same people who don't block popups.)
This is what I hate: word nazis.
Guess what happens when everyone starts using a word a certain way?
That becomes the definition.
Will we ever learn?
I know what "ironic" is supposed to mean, but I know what people usually mean when they say "ironic."
It's fine. We all know what's meant, and there isn't really another word to convey the meaning that is trying to be conveyed by current use of the word "ironic." "Coincidental" doesn't cut it, nor does "wierd," or whatever.
As long as there's no confusion over meaning, and no other more appropriate term, it's okay. Get over it and find another way to stroke your ego.
</vent>
Just looking at the definitions, the confusion is understandable - in the first instance, rhetorical irony expands to cover any disjunction at all between language and meaning, with a couple of key exceptions (allegory also entails a disconnection between sign and meaning, but obviously isn't synonymous with irony; and lying, clearly, leaves that gap, but relies for its efficacy on an ignorant audience, where irony relies on a knowing one).
Anyone else feel like the writer was on speed or something? Break that sentence up man, my head is spinning.
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
.
"Irony" is when we get a lecture on English usage from Slashdot!
I thought that irony was like 'smoky' but with iron.
I guess we'll never know.
And i always thought irony was when you get 10,000 spoons and all you need is a knife...
I find it ironic that everybody will read the article, think they understand irony, and then post here to prove the exact opposite.
(and yes, I'm trying to do exactly that, but this bit in brackets screws it all up)
I saw some freaking hilarious British Comedian already do a whole bit on this subject over a year ago (on the Letterman or O'OBrian show, whatevah).
..."Is'nt it Ironic that the only popular song about Irony isn't even about ironic things???"
.....or he may contact SCO lawyers.
He even ended up his bit making a joke about the Alanis Morissete Song
Anyway, if anyone else out there remembers this guys name, help me out here, he needs to get his credit
I think, therefore I thought.
In the "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" section of the paperback version of Dave Egger's book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers wrote a long, insightful section about the word 'irony' and its blatant misuse in today's society. Apparently quite a few people and critics had described his book as 'ironic', when he felt that it, for the most part, was anything but ironic.
"1. When someone kids around, it does not necessarily mean he or she is being ironic. That is, when one tells a joke, in any context, it can mean, simply, that a joke is being told."
It goes on, and it's really quite good. Does anybody else remember this. (oh, and the book is amazing. YMMV, but I highly recommend at least trying it)
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Just ask Alanis.
Give me sarcasm or give me death.
Obligatory Simpsons quote (err, 'paraphrased,' just in case I screw it up):
"This guy's cool"
"Are you being sarcastic, dude?"
"I don't even know anymore"
I'm starting to think this isn't the best place to promote my Anti-Sig Campaign.
It is the nature of languages to change. Just as society evolves, language evolves to suit it.
Sometimes it is done unintentially, othertimes it is done in the hopes of getting a product name out there ("I googled for it...", "Want a coke?" when you actually mean any generic soda, etc...) and other times it is done for the sake of brevity.
Irregardless of the motivation, the language evolves and eventually it becomes accepted enough and then it gets put into the dictionaries.
I had an interesting discussion with the folks at m-w.com about how that actually works. Pretty interesting stuff.
*shrug* That is how it works, so deal with it.
p.s. I used irregardless just to piss some people off.
Hemingway had a bit to say about irony in "The Sun Also Rises." What exactly he said is left as an exercise for the reader. =)
Irony is when your ironing and listening to Alanis Morissette.
Are you really a bomb technician? Is it ironic when your computer crashes?
c-hack.com |
Edmund:Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick:Yeah, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.
from Amy and Amiability
Honestly, what a pedantic load of crap. Bad Old American GibberSpeak must be stamped out, by George, eh what!
The English quibble about it like they invented the language or something. Chill out, dudes.
GMFTatsujin
Correct me if I am wrong (spelling implied), but wasn't there an episode of Black Adder wher Bauldrik(sp?) described irony as "like goldy but made of iron?"
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
At least it isn't yet another IBM vs SCO story. A little varity never hurt anyone.
Reality Bites - Winona Ryder - Ethan Hawke
Reality Bites - Winona Ryder - Ethan Hawke
Lelaina: I mean, these job interviews, Troy... The word "vivesection" a staggering understatement. I mean, can you define irony?
Troy:: Its when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.
Lelaina: My God, where were you when I needed you today?
I found this article VERY interresting.
from the don't-you-think dept.
No, I dont think.
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
I'm not exactly sure how to use the word "Irony", but thanks to Fark, I know how not to use it ;)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
it is just British self importance expanded to an ironic and self-parodying degree. Or maybe it just sucks.
... I "hate" people that "overuse" quote marks. heh.
I've noticed that many people here don't really know the true meaning of the word Ironic and Sarcasm.
Ironic means that from what was expected, a total opposite of that occurred instead. For example, I expected it to snow yesterday -- instead we got one of the hottest days of the year.
Sarcasm is when a person is saying something but mean the complete opposite. For example, when somebody say "That's nasty!" but he mean that it is "cool" or "hip".
So to sum it up: You can not speak in irony and situations can't be sarcastic. I'm no linguistics expert or anything. It's just that I get pissed off when people mix these two up.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Somehow, I would expect this article to be shown on the Onion, or some place in the Everything2 definition of "ironic." Oh well, I can't recieve the few minutes of my life back after reading this article.
The vast majority of computer geeks who don't know the difference between the words "then" and "than".
Especially since on a daily basis they use IF/THEN statements and use the ">" symbol to denote "greater than". One would think that they'd have some sort of clue as to their grammatical missteps.
Or was the preceding just ironic?
I friggin hate prescriptive linguists, but I guess the loser english majors have to get their rocks off somehow.
trajedy is the most misunderstood and misused word.
"America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic"
:^)
MHHHHhhhhwahahahaahaaHaHaHaHAHAHAAAA
"Its like a 747 suicide attack on your wedding day"
If you think the story is crap, you are free to move on. But this being a discussion forum, and "Isn't it ironic..." being on of its favourite phrases, why shouldn't some of us be interested in reflecting the original (yeah, avoiding "correct" here...) usage of this term, and how it is most commonly used instead these days. After all, with some sensitivity for language subtilities you can be much wittier, impress girls, most important get more slashdot karma... (If you don't believe me, try making jokes in any than your first language -- I had to learn this the hard way when I first came to an English speaking country.)
Everything I learned about irony I learned from Alanis Morrisette.
Isn't that ironic?
*walks away in shame*
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Yeah, people are pretty stupid. If you were still in school and taking any english or lit course, you'd be instantly slapped down for not being able to define irony. Lol. Especially if you try to use it in the wrong context.
Please mod-up parent!
Most pressingly, though, there are a number of misconceptions about irony that are peculiar to recent times. The first is that September 11 spelled the end of irony. The second is that the end of irony would be the one good thing to come out of September 11.
What the hell does 9/11 have to do with irony?! And how the hell does irony end?
Also, "poetic justice" is another form of dramatic irony. See also, "Shawshank Redeption, The" [Movie] and "Macbeth" [Screenplay]
i on ary&va=irony
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dict
Iro.ny
Pronunciation: 'I-r&-nE also 'I(-&)r-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eirOnia, from eirOn dissembler
Date: 1502
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning -- called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play -- called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
About 300 "dot com" companies, which are mostly famous these days for losing tremendous amounts of money, have agreed to pay $1 Billion to settle a lawsuit claiming that they inflated their IPO prices.
I guess it's really sad, rather than ironic.
Of Slashdot won't post a story on this settlement, either because (1) it's not news for nerds [and a Guardian story about irony is??], or (2) one of the dot-coms is VA Software.
Well, according to at least one scientist, it is.
Ohh, come on! This is one of the funniest comments.
And no, this post isn't being ironic, either.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic... don't you think?
Chorus:
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought... it figures
Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic... don't you think?
Repeat Chorus
Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic... don't you think?
A little too ironic... and yeah I really do think...
Repeat Chorus
Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out
$cat
The example that helps me understand irony is:
A fire boat caught fire and sank.
Was watching one of those stand up comedians on comedy central. She said, that nothing in the song "Ironic" is ironic. A black fly in your chardonnay, or rain on your wedding day is UNFORTUNATE, but not ironic.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Hmmm, maybe it's just too hot of a summer day to think much, but am I the only one who found the article long and boring? Then again I'm not one that often gets British humor either.
/. anyway?
BTW, what is this doing on
Lyndsey Nagle: Do I detect a note of sarcasm?
Frink: (with sarcasm detector) Are you kidding me? This baby is right off the charts, mm-hai.
CBG:A sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention.
(Sarcasm detector explodes)
It reminds me of that comedian that said "Isn't it ironic? No, Alanis, it's unfortunate. You've been singing for two whole minutes and haven't yet said one thing that is ironic."
====
Crudely Drawn Games
The irony is that a Slashdot grammar nazi got it wrong when being a nazi about grammar. Well, OK, it would be ironic if it weren't for the fact that this happens every time someone tries to correct someone else's grammar or spelling. Anyhow:
Grammar: (n) The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.
Grammar is about the structure of language, not its usage. An article about irony is not an article about proper grammar.
Bonus points for those of you who can point out the seven flaws in this message.
This is one of the best pieces I've ever seen on slashdot.
Maybe the above statement is ironic, and maybe it isn't.
If it is ironic, maybe it's literary irony and maybe its cosmic irony.
By George! I think I've got it! Now isn't that ironic?
(What is the smiley for an evil grin? ;]
is VA Software
No, that's TimeStyle, a term which used to refer to Time Magazine, but since it's gotten so skinny, it's been reassigned to the New York Times. I guess Jason Blair still roolz.
this is the stupidest article seen on , well anywhere.
Etymology: ad. L. ironia (Cicero), a. Gr. eirwneia `dissimulation, ignorance purposely affected'. Cf. Fr. ironie (yronie, Oresme, 14th c.).
1 A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.
2 fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things. (In F. ironie du sort.)
3 In etymological sense: Dissimulation, pretence; esp. in reference to the dissimulation of ignorance practised by Socrates as a means of confuting an adversary ( Socratic irony ).
Irony == ;-)
;-)
duh
You mod the story -1 Offtopic and you got modded -1 Offtopic yourself. That's irony.
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Ironic means that from what was expected, a total opposite of that occurred instead. For example, I expected it to snow yesterday -- instead we got one of the hottest days of the year.
This is not ironic. It is simply contrary to expectations. If, however, you dressed warmly in expectation of snow, and then dropped dead of heatstroke, that would be ironic.
Isn't it ironic?
No
Yes
I don't know
Do I look ironic to you!?
I don't like irony, you insensitive clod!
CowboyNeal takes care of my irony
sig(h)
except, iirc, she publicly stated that the irony of the song is that none of the examples of irony are actually irony
I saw an interview on television where she said this, but I just don't know if I should believe her. She said this after the whole world said the title of the song was the only thing ironic about it. But she is a clever gal, and I know how frustrating it can be when no one gets your irony, so I chose to accept her statement despite my doubts.
BTW Never try an ironic arguement in a room full of christian's whose parents are in the military. They will believe you are serious when you say we should wipe out the Swedes because they are just too blond. There is no one there to see the absurdity of their arguement that they shouldn't be wiped out because while they are not Baptists or Presbiterians they are Lutherans and Lutherans are still Christians. (My father was Lutheran, my name is Lutheran, I'm Scandinavian, and I was wearing a "Make Love Not War" pin. High school just made me want to beat my head against blunt objects, at least it was only the intro courses in college where people thought Brave New World was a good prescription for how we should live our lives.)
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Butthead: Umm, what's that word when you don't think something cool is going to happen and then it happens?
Stuart: Ironic?
Butthead: No dumbass, an English word.
Beavis: Umm,.. cool?
Butthead: Yeah. That was cool.
I was once on a hockey team called the Dancing Dagos, I played defense.
Miami is mostly spics, it would be the Chi-Town Dagos.
BTW, the DD name is not far fetched. Notre Dame is the Fighting Irish. That's not a compliment, it's a slur that dates back to the Irish immigration after the Potato Famine. (Some) Irish were drunkards, and when liquored up got into fights.
I remember a couple of years ago a comedian at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival disected the Alanis song Ironic ...
"'It's like rain on your wedding day' NO! That's only ironic if you're marrying a weatherman and he picked the date!"
He gave anything that is labelled ironic but blatently isn't, the title of Alanic.
That was enough for me to use the word more appropriately!
Not that I agree that the definition of irony should be changed. But English is still a living language, which means that the definition and scope of words will change. So perhaps someday in the dictionary under the entry for irony or ironic, it will include what people commonly mean it to be.
I really hate that fucking stupid song because none of the situations that Alanis Morrisette warbles out are actually ironic
A free ride when you already paid?
That's not irony that's just being an idiot.
Rain on your wedding day?
Oh yes look at the levels of irony in that one. No wait, it's just 'bad luck'.
Good advice that you just can't take?
Puhlease....
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I work on a diary farm in the summer and my boss(the owner) is highly allergic to milk! A man whos life's work is producing milk can't drink a drop of it! Or eat cheese, which is what is done with his milk.If that ain't irony, i don't know what is.
yeah, but the Mad Hatter took the other perspective by saying that there's no way that anyone means what they say because they can't say what they mean. There's no way you can say "you are what you eat" because you can't "eat what you are." It's an insane chapter and by itself makes Alice in Wonderland worth owning.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I don't think I've ever used the word ironic in any of the ways that the author mentioned. Am I a freak because I seem to use it correctly? The author made it sound as if _everyone_ used it incorrectly, but I definitely disagree. Is anyone else with me on this?
[glows slightly] 'tis! an amazing book.
One interesting thing about AHWOSG is the pace -- it starts out slooow, where every incident is described in great detail. It steadily accelerates throughout until the ending which is like "and then everybody grew upandgotahaircutandarealjobhappeverafterTHEEND."
At first I thought it was a little disappointing that such great writing could wind down so trivially. I would have expected it to be more evenly paced, with some brilliant dramatic event unfolding and coming to a climax somewhere about halfway between the middle and the end of the book.
But ( ironically? NOT! Ha!) life is like that: when you're a kid, every day seems like an eternity, and everything is terribly meaningful. As you get older it just...accelerates, and everything just seems less important--except the things that really are , which you never "get" except in retrospect.
To get back to the original article and the original topic, I liked the way it made the distinction amongst rhetorical irony, philosophical irony and situational irony.
For IBM, even more of a corporate bully in its day than M$, to be championing open source software, and even going to the wall for OSS against SCO, is situational irony. It's the opposite of what we've learned to expect from them.
Next week, class, we will discuss Syllogisms (anyone who had to live through the Reagan/Thatcher era will recognise these devices!).
My head gasket was ruined because the engine software could not figure out that the temperature sensor had failed. It tried to warm the engine up.
Not Ironic?
I was a Software Quality Enginer at the time.
Go Irony.
If, on the other hand, I was having a party and I didn't want my dad to come, and I spent three weeks working on a brilliant cover story for why he couldn't come, and then my sister accidentally blew my cover, so I had to invite him anyway, and then, on the way here, he got run over and died - that's ironic.
I think she should have stopped after the forced invite, but i'm not even sure that's ironic.
Very ironic: an author that shows extremely inspired command of a word's meaning up until the point where she makes her final example, and then gets it dreadfully wrong and uninspired.
She cites many bad uses of "irony", but for all we know, those people also use the word ironic correctly for 95% of the time.
what "texting" really needs is a global slashdot-style qualifier, such as
+5, Serious
"I have shot Lorna."
The true irony is this slashdot story linking an article about the misuse of the word "irony" and all the comments from people misusing the word irony...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
That's what you get using a dictionary that's 90 years out of date.
I was reading "Age of Irony" by Jedediah Purdy at http://www.prospect.org/print/V9/39/purdy-j.html and it all seemed to gel at last.
I have never understood why I really hated that term "don't take yourself too seriously." Well, at least now, I can study the true depths of its meaning, so as to form a counter argument.
First, what they mean, is now clear: among those who take themselves seriously, exists a large subset of people who are pompous, self-righteous, and at the worst extreme, people who are given to justiy the worst atrocities in the name of an ideology or religion.
But now, let's look at this (from Jedediah Purdy's essay):
My argument is, that 'irony', or more specifically, people who religiously take nothing seriously, have mired this society in utter apathy.
To accurately and concisely describe the state of affairs we are in now, I will offer two quotes (one I got clarified right here at slashdot):
I would add the quote "Those that stand for nothing, fall for anything" (author yet unknown to me), but the "irony" generation does profess to stand for something. What it is, Providence only knows. Let us look at this, shall we?
Ironic thinkers - those who eschew seriousness and approach life with jokes, pokes, and the 'laid back approach' - accuse their opposites of being intolerant, self-righteous hypocrites. But these same modern 'ironic' thinkers are the ones who brought us
Intolerance, hate, and the politics of division:
Fat bashing
Geek bashing
Religion bashing
Male bashing
Self-Righteousness:
"Get Over It" as the cure-all mantra for all manner of life traumas (abuse, molestation, etc.). What the 'ironic' thinkers forget, in this, is that everyone has issues - the profound lack of social support systems in modern society is as equally the fault of apathetic "I don't have time to listen to this, so get me my beer or get lost!" as it is the fault of Christian Repressionist "You must have demons inside you, let us drill a hole in your head to make it go away" ignorance.
To note: the 'irony' crowd tends to have a profound and sometimes verbally and physically violent reaction towards people in emotional distress. The irony of this is these same people then have nowhere to turn when they themselves are depressed or feel their life is in a rut. It is not uncommon that recreational drugs are then used to provide counsel.
Hypocrisy:
SUV owning activists gathering at Starbuck's to drive out to the "No War For Oil!" protest
I can discuss a multitude of other examples here, but I won't get into it.
Ultimately, apathy, the child of ironic thinking, is why we are seeing all of our rights being taken away by the RIAA and MPAA, etc. Apathy and the refusal to be serious about things, is why our politicians and corporations continue to practically dick we the people over with impugnity.
A populace that was more serious and less apathetic, would never allow such things to transpire for so long.
Of course, a really serious, and politically active populace, might be predisposed to frequent revolts, or to
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Different points of view on the word Ironic
The Ironic Uses of "Irony"
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Native Americans were as much as warmongers as Europeans were, just less technologically advanced. Remember, they wanted to buy guns, they wanted the horses, and the whole tribal system was basically a male centered warrior cult mythology. If the Native Americans had invented calculus and sailing vessels first, they would have been spreading smallpox in Europe.
This is my sig.
a car representing a local collision repair business hit the back of a bus and completely wrecked the front end. My wife and I couldn't decide if it was an elaborate advertisement or just bone-headed driving. Nevertheless, it was pretty ironic.
Us "self-important" Brits (yes, all 65 million of us) tend to get slightly pissed off with the condescending way Americans (or some of them) assume that the entire population of the UK have either upper-class or Cockney accents and look down our noses at Americans!
Some of us are in fact well aware that a good deal of Americans (especially sitcom writers) are well-versed in irony, some a lot better than us (have you *seen* our hospital dramas? ER versus Casualty is really no debate).
The thing to be pointed out here is that self-importance on the part of a few Brits AND Americans is what started this "Irony Is Dead" thing in the first place. Sweeping statements never do anyone any good credibility-wise...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
A senator arguing for pirates to have their machines remotely destructed only to discover his website was violating a license agreement.
A governor in my county approving funding for radar speed guns only to be caught by one himself.
Something you iron your shirty with.
WTF is this modded up? If the word European was replaced with the word Jews, would anyone dare mod it up?
I have a problem with that senetence:
> Some Irish were drunkards and when liquored up got into fights
You need to get rid of the "Some," change the "were" to "are" and the "got" to "get."
I think you mean wetbacks, or maybe beaners, although they should be from Boston, prolly. Dagos are Italian.
I find it Ironic that before 9/11/01 Anakin Skywalker wouldn't lose in a fight to his lady. But then sometime after that, George Lucas decided otherwise...
Actually she is correct about a few of her examples. The old man who wins the lottery and dies the next day is ironic. The two minute late pardon for the guy who just got toasted in the electric chair is ironic. The guy who works up the courage to fly after years of being afraid of it and dies on that plane ride is an ironic situation. The other stuff in the song, true, are either annoyances or bad luck or whatever, but she gets it right a few times.
Oh yeah, irony didn't die on 9/11/2001. Al'Qaeda and the Taliban and Saddam and so on were all once, one way or another, on the CIA's payroll. Cue Alannis...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
When people use the term "irony" or "ironic" to describe something that they thought was "ironic," but in fact was not, would that be irony? Or just stupidity?
If you ever want to see a brilliant use of Socratic irony watch re-runs of Columbo...
:) Cheers...
Best damn detective show ever...
Always left the smart people with a smile on their faces...
It's odd that he never tried to seperate or draw parallels between sarcasm and irony...
They seem far more similar than irony and cynicism.
Nothing feels better than acting ignorant to get your opponent to argue your side for you...
hehe
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
All the editor would've had to have done was add something to the effect that geeks could use the lesson, then they'd have gone from ironic to hypocritical.
What a perfect article for the common Sys Admin. Now you can add one more word to your arsenal of pretentious facts that most normal people don't give a fuck about!
I can see Jimmy Falon playing the computer guy on SNL going off on a user who accidentally uses the word incorrectly.
When I was in grade school I was given an examples of literary irony.
Gift of the Magi -- Where the husband pawns his cherished watch to buy his wife a comb set for her beautiful hair, while the wife cut and sold her beautiful hair to buy her husband a beautiful watch fob for his cherished watch.
Aesop, as in Aesop's Fables had another good example of irony. I bird trades it's feathers for a favor, some time later the bird was brought down by an hunters arrow, while dying the bird noticed the arrow was fletched with his own feathers.
Irony is not dead so long as the universe itself exists. If the saying that "luck is where opportunity meets preparation" is true, then irony is certainly a device of the divine, and therefor is not in mans domain to be declared dead.
(nt)
A practitioner of gluttony is called a glutton; a practitioner of villainy is caled a villain; so by those criteria, God is an iron.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
When did any sexually suggestive phrase suddenly become a "euphemism"? I hear a lot of people use "euphemism" when they mean "double entendre"...has anyone else noticed this??
That michael is posting the most bullshit ever this week? (Well, not really)
Posting anonymously to prevent Michael from modbombing me..
In the play Educating Rita, the professor corrects Rita on the use of "tragedy" and "tragic." I see a similar conflict here in a clash between popular use and literary, educated use of "irony."
Besides the obligatory Blackadder reference, which was already posted and was the first thing that came to my mind, my favorite definition comes from the book "An Incomplete Education." I'm not going to whore with an amazon referral link. I'm sure everyone knows how to look for it.
An excerpt:
"Unlike wit, its meaning, or rather bundle of meanings, has held fairly steady over time: Always it's implied that there are two sets of listeners keyed in to the same statement, story, or piece of information, and that one of them gets it--sees it for what it is, in all its poignancy or complexity or awfulness--and the other one doesn't. If you're in the former set, congratulations: The ability to recognize irony, expecially in writing (where there are no facial expressions or vocal inflections to help it, and you, along), has for centuries been regarded as one of the surest tests of intelligence and sophistication."
-- "An Incomplete Education", J. Jones & W. Wilson, (c) 1987
They go on to define the five types of irony: Socratic, dramatic/tragic, romantic, cosmic and verbal.
I'll summarize each of them, without referring directly to the text.
Socratic : asking pointless, naive questions while feigning ignorance to blast holes in the victim's belief system, dogma, etc.
Dramatic/tragic : The audience knows something that the character's on stage do not.
Ex: Oedipus vows revenge on the murderer of his father, and everyone in the audience gasps. (In case you skipped fourth grade that week, Oedipus killed his father without realizing it...)
Cosmic : God mocks or sports with mortals. Like in "Clash of the Titans," where Zeus and Hera are playing games with the little clay figurines...
Romantic : Where the author reveals that the characters are fictions created and manipulated by him. (Sort of jumping back to the meta-level while in narrative). I wonder if the woman at the beginning of "Hitchhikers" (whose story it was not about) would qualify as this...
Verbal : Using juxtaposition or understatement to say something which (sometimes) may be vague enough to leave you wondering exactly what the intended meaning is.
Ex: Calling a 500 pound athlete "Tiny" is irony, in and of itself. It would be "extra special ironic" if you were calling him "Tiny" when the prevailing rumor says that he has undersized genitalia. It would be even more ironic if "Tiny" called himself "Tiny" without knowing about the rumor.
on the subject of misused words...
"Literally" is one of the worst. It really means the opposite of figurative, but most speakers mistreat it as a superlative, using it for emphasis. After the relationship ends bitterly a woman might say "My ex-boyfriend is not prince but a frog. I mean LITERALLY a frog." Here, the jilted lover believes that with the use of "literally" she heaps scorn upon a former paramour. In fact she has confessed to intimacey with something small and green which hops about catching flies in its mouth.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
1. Possessives are formed, often, by appending "'s."
2. Plurals are formed, often, by adding "s."
3. Many people are too big of 'tard's to know the difference.
I appreciate Slashdot moving into topics that are interesting in ways that are orthogonal to the ways that, say SciFi is interesting. For those that want to be engaged by some prose, I suggest
The Naturalist, by Barry Lopez
hmmm?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Every English-speaking, non-American learns shortly after birth that Americans don't understand irony. It's one of the things that makes US TV comedy in particular so ... um, "unintentionally funny" to the rest of us a lot of the time.
Of course, if you're reading this and you're American, no offence intended. After all, everyone knows you guys make the best TV shows.
So, you take a cover of FHM, with tits on the front - and it's ironic because it appears to be saying "women are objects", yet of course it isn't saying that, because we're in a postfeminist age. But nor is it saying "women aren't objects", because that would be dated, over-sincere, mawkish even. So, it's effectively saying "women are neither objects, nor non-objects - and here are some tits!
I think it just says that tits sell magazines (seriously, men's magazines have tits on the cover, and women's magazines have tits on the cover).
Women are more pleasant to look at than men, that's all. Mostly because of the tits.
Who is she? I am not familiar with her. Based on this one piece, she seems clever and witty. What else has she done? What is her background?
My initial googling was mostly a failure.
theguardian.co.uk claims that the more a society claims to be ironic, the less so that it really is.
It then goes on to claim that Americans and Germans cannot do irony, while Britons can. Again, how ironic.
Actually, Irony is where the Iranians come from.
...when an open invitation for irony comes along, most of us are at a loss.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I dont know about you, but i learnt the meaning of irony from alanis morisets song. I stand by that meaning. What ever it was.
But think about it... people invent words all the time. Look at Australia for example, we've had many words all to our selfs for a very long time. Now thanx to the crock hunter you yankees know about them and sometimes use them. My point it, if a word can be made up and put into a dictionary (as some aussie slang has been) why cant the meaning of the word be modified? Surly if more people use a word one way then people use it another, the majority wins and we have a new meaning?
Not that im suggesting that we suddenly go change the dictionary meaning or that the majority of people use it differently, but its worth a thought!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Blackadder: "Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?" Baldrick: "Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron"
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I agree wholeheartedly. I encourage everyone to use my definition of "two", which is "three". Oh wait, I forgot. The only reason language works is because there is consensus on what words mean. You don't know what people mean when they misuse the word ironic, it just doesn't matter because they don't either, or they would've used the correct word.
As I recall, that scene (and the interview scene it references) were fairly important plot devices -- i.e. Snooty Girl Begins To Recognize Intrinsic Value Of Scruffy Boy, And Reevaluate Herself.
One simple rule for its versus it's
How much of that forthright emotional shit must we endure? People fly planes into buildings, occasionally on purpose. It happens.
9/11 spawned some good jokes. They cannot be put in the mass media, though, because we're still being sincere.
One guy on 9/11/2002: The Simpsons isn't showing. The terrorists truly have won.
Another guy on 9/11/2002: I'm mad that none of my favorite TV shows are on tonight.
Yet another: Yeah, the same thing happened last year.
There is an undercurrent of disgust, boredom and spite that cuts through culture and life. It exists at many levels and many times. Sure, some people don't like irony, but I bet if we built some really huge buildings, we could fit all of them in them and then fly planes into the buildings. The only question is what the news coverage would be like.
Irony is not black humor, except when it is.
The very definition of irony. :)
Sure way to get scored troll.
Hooray, I call backwards day! Any off-topic post is, ironically, on topic! You can't moderate me down, you can moderate me up! Isn't that ironic?!
And now, I bring you a short poem.
1. on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a parse tree
2. on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me two kernel dumps
3. on the third day of christmas my true love gave to me three branch ends
4. on the fourth day of christmas my true love gave to me four calling backs
5. on the fifth day of christmas my true love gave to me five token rings
Would you mind finishing it for me? That's as far as I got.
simon
home page
Prior to reading the article I would have defined it like this: "irony: A word uttered to invite verbal attack." And since, I'm defining words, I'll , also, define a word called "ironirian" , for definition look up grammarian, and swap grammar for irony. Also, look up pendantic. If you need to, lookup perjoravitive. Now to the "ironirans", I'll say: I wonder if fish know they shouldn't swim since they don't know the meaning of the word. [1]
,just, simply, way-beyond, mere irony? And, of course they picked those most militant since they want somebody who'd blindly support them against there neighbor to the south, India, but it saved us some money, since the CIA didn't have to do it personally, anymore. Are we doing it again, with this new head
/like/ peanut-butter.
But really, irony is just a tool, and Phase 1, why call it irony, when one can call it
socractic? Phase 2... No idea.. I think that parsed, but I didn't grok any of it.
-- Unless he invented the "romantic twist", otherwise I don't know what you're talking about. Phase 3. Chaucer.. AWESOME. "A lie to expose another lie". And there by
gain the truth [2]. Irony as a device to expose hypocracy and propaganda.
Phase 4.... Why not call it "Obligatory Irony"? Because. that is what that has become.
it really cheapens Phases 1 and Phases 3, and I since I didn't understand phase 2 I can't say. Seriously, at times, (and more than I can count), I 've found myself growing rather bored, why someone makes me wait, while they figure out how to rephrase what they just said, as ironic. But, don't complain how tedious it's become, and don't, whatever you do, compare it to the tedium of having to wait around for hours, while your stoner friends messes up Stairway to Heaven for the Nth time.... "Wait! Just one more time, dude! Let me startover again."
I rediscovered sincerity, prior to 9/11, but I think it was just for justapostion with my own ironic attempts, and not really any for any high-moral reasons. [3] However, I've found, I like it , it seems to clean the platette, as it were, improves onces appreciation for high irony, and allows one to more easily discriminate low irony [4].
How about death to "Obligatory Irony?" , but keep real wit.
But then again, if there an art to it, then it's somewhat subjective then isn't it?
If, its no surprise at all , or shouldn't be? Is it ironic? I say, its bad irony, bad use of,
bad execution of.. For example, when he says
"America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs
and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic"
I respond to the former: No, its a pattern, rapidly becoming a tragic flaw.
A tragic flaw of messing it up in the details. What happened was someone advised Reagan that we could, simply, trust Pakastani Intelligence to dole out weapons to the Freedom Fighters. Reagan, definitely had a soft spot in his heart for freedom fighters didn't he? And isn't a tragic flaw
of the Atomic Energy Commision in Iraq, a guy who used to be part Iraq's program
for WMD? I hope that wasn't negoiated before he gave us, whatever information he gave us. Personally, I'd have given the snitch 50 bucks and a plane ticket, then found an American Iraqi, someone, maybe, whose parents had fled Iraq years ago -- I'd bet there'd be at least 10 in the US with Physics Degrees, probably more.
And to the latter: I say I don't get it. This is common practice in war. Kill the combatants, feed the rest. Its the winning of hearts and minds. But, then I
[1] Did I just steal that? I want to say Twain, but no idea.
[2] again?
[3] Long, long, before before... practically, started a counter-culture of 1, based solely on the fact, that I could speak whole sentences "plain-text".
[4] And discard it.
The single most misused word I have come across is "literally"...
For instance: "His performance was so great! It literally blew me away."
Unless "he" was performing an imitation of a hurricane, the above use of "literally" is blatantly incorrect. Unfortuanately, all too often, "literally" is being used intechangeably with "really" and "absolutely", which is a real problem.
If fear it won't be long before "literally" is meaningless, and you won't have any way to telling someone you are not speaking figuratively.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Slashdot screencap
no
For the most of my life, I have said that "life is irony." Irony is not something you so much look back on & think about: it is more often applicable to a situation that develops. I believe I also saw someone mention coincidence: if you consider coincidence a form of irony, then you must also consider irony to be a "modifier" on reality; coincidences are sometimes considered miracles by those who must seek their faith in all things, in order to comprehend them. I am not a man of faith, and would rather apply irony as an "anti-miracle:" more like a joke of the Gods vs. an act of salvation. Irony is one of those tools people use to rationalize their existence: I have had a not so stable life, so I use irony for that purpose; it brings order & meaning to my worldview.
Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.
That's irony to me.
Irony was in fact king that day it seems.
Basically, "ironic" has been used for a long time as a fancy literary and philosophical term, and recently enough people heard the word used without being told any of the meanings. They took a guess and came up with meanings like "sarcastic," "cynical" and just plain "sucky," which were reasonable given the context.
Now the literary and philosophical types are all upset because everyone's using their word "wrong." Get over it! Maybe if you weren't so boring, people would understand what you're talking about. But now they've got your word and you're not getting it back, so if you want to be clear among yourselves, just add a qualifier like "Socratic irony" or "rhetorical irony." Then you'll be able to tell who's a part of your in-group again.
You don't own the language. Meanings change over time. You'll deal. Everyone will be able to understand each other just as well as they always have (i.e. not very).
Even worse, I believe, than the misuse of the word "irony" is the misuse of "logical fallacy". Its misuse is often just as blatant, and I find it to be quite a bit more annoying.
By no stretch of the imagination is the statement, "The guardians of language are often the biggest opponents of its development and modernization," a "logical fallacy".
It seems to be a false statement, but that does not a "logical fallacy", make.
Perhaps you believe that the author's statement was arrived at by an argument embodying or containing a "logical fallacy", or that the author otherwise employed fallacious reasoning in arriving at his or her conclusion. This may well be the case, however, the statement itself is not a "logical fallacy" and the author does not commit a "logical fallacy" in asserting it.
What about the rest of your claims?
"Mutation of language is neither development nor modernization. It is bastardization."
I don't care to discuss theories of language and theories of reference with you, so I will say simply that your statement is clearly false for many instances of "mutation of language".
You are suggesting that what it is meant by perhaps an 'ideal English language speaker', when he or she states, "x is an instance of mutation of language," is, "x is an instance of bastardization of language."
I think it is obvious that this is not what an 'ideal English language speaker' means for every x.
Further, I think it is obvious that were an 'ideal English language speaker' not to mean this, for at least some x, he or she would not be making a false statement.
The word, "bastardization" has, according to several of the most common definitions, very much a negative connotation. (Goodness, look at its definition).
In fact, unless an 'ideal English language speaker' is, as the previous poster may have been suggesting, a "guardian" of the language, it seems quite likely that the 'ideal English language speaker' will sometimes, perhaps in the case of archaic or "imported" words, intend just the opposite of what is expressed by employing a word with a negative connotation.
And no, I quite honestly do not care whether I have above employed perfect grammar, spelling, or form.
If you understood what I meant: great!
If you didn't, I can't be bothered to try to make it more clear.
read this...
http://www.geocities.com/eirig/
Any Canadians who don't understand irony to at least a decent level get hyped up and exported to the US. That's why the whole Alanis affair ended the way it did.
It sounds harsh, but we can't afford to let them ruin our reputation as cynical but good-natured socialist intellectuals.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
That was the most pretentious chain of drivel I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I feel like I'm reading K5 for Christ's sake!...
A layman's introduction to the proper use of Irony part 1 of 17...
What a brilliant way to encourage people to use your airport! [example of irony usually mislabeled 'sarcasm' by those who don't know what either word means, much less the subtlety of the related term 'sardonic']
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
MTV's president didn't declare irony dead. Robert Thompson did on a Viacom program (which may or may not have appeard on MTV, it might have been VH1). I remember this because Rober Thompson is a media whore of the first order and anytime he pops up, I know the program using him was put together with a minimum of effort.
If you pay attention, you will see Thompson show up with eerie frequency any time a peice about the current culture is done. A quick Google news search for "robert Thompson" and Syracuse (the university at which he is employed) turns up 50 articles with quotes from this guy.
All this guy must do is sit around and answer the phone all day.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I've read about 50 of the 235 comments that are here when I loded the page, and my head about to blow up.
You guys with "IRONY" are reminding me of an old French TV show, the "Francophonissime", where a panel of personnalities were shown a silent short-movie about something in particular, one for each panelist.
They had to narrate the movie but were not allowed to name the subject when referring to the subject, but were allowed to name it when NOT referring to it...
The one who did slip the least was the winner...
IRONY: Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils.
IRONY + SARCASM: Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
SARCASM: No, I've set fire to myself for a bit of a laugh. Obviously.
SARCASM + BITCHINESS: I'm not your type. I'm not inflatable.
BITCHINESS: Tight-fisted? If it cost him a penny to *hit, he'd throw up instead.
What is all this death of irony crap, and age of irony the article mentioned??
Sure, people misuse this word all the time. But this is really the first time I have heard mention of all the true cultural significance of irony, and its connection to September 11. That bit seemed like a steaming load to me.
Can anyone else comment on that?
George Carlin would be proud.
This sig no verb.
I remember reading a rant by C.S. Lewis describing this very thing...
That sounds like this one here (about three-quarters of the way down the page).
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
That's what I love about Slashdot. Quality writing and a great distillation of news that really focuses on its 'News for nerds, stuff that matters' copy line.
;-)
Keep up the good work michael. I'm surprised you haven't been snapped up by one of those corporate news sites by now. Such talent.
cLive
ps -
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
alergic to personal journals perhaps? "diary farm"..
Bob, get the bucket!, betsy is ready to be inked..
The article discusses some of the finer points of irony, noting for instance that "...irony is much more subversive than sarcasm, and also much more fun--those who realise that an ironic remark has been made are instantly complicit, and they can enjoy the fact that there are others who have missed the joke."
Here you go -- I watched this guy show off how to fire a canon. His performance was so great! It literally blew me away. Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't have stood in front of the canon during the demonstration. Fortunately I was wearing my canon-proof vest that day. Sadly, though, I had my head down the barrel when it went off. Now isn't that ironic?
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Kind of like the media, general public, CEOs, etc... doesn't know the meaning of the word "broadband".
No, broadband does NOT = high speed.
We could probably come up with a list of 5,000 words that are misused by 95% of the public. But would anyone really listen?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The ultimate winner here is Alanis Morrissette. I mean, who would have thought, that 8 years after Jagged Little Pill came out, people would still be complaining about it. Not because it was bad, but because of it's misuse of grammer.
Those are some pretty damn persistant Slashdot Grammer Nazi's.
Have you ever used the word "ironic?" Do you know what it really means?
If I use a word, and both I, my audience, and anyone who happens to hear it knows what I mean, then I do know what the word means. Even if Webster thinks it means something different.
That said, the article does touch on some very good points--Irony is, essentially, a cosmic joke. Somehow I can't see the US getting attacked by terrorists as either being or ending a cosmic joke.
Sarcasm isn't rhetorical irony? Merriam-Webster make it sound a lot like it. "...2a the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning" That doesn't sound like sarcasm at all, does it? That also fits with the first definition in the Guardian article.
Perhaps the distinction is making an argument, or trying to point out a truth, rather than just a cheap joke. Some intention or belief at the bottom of it that carries it from a joke to an actual argument.
To me, that's the interesting part of this discussion of irony. I think many of these misuses of the word are defensible, using one definition or the other, but the thing that I find troublesome is that so often this claim of irony is accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge any sincere belief.
Mocking everything isn't irony. I think the modern (arguably inaccurate) idea of irony, with its affectation of nihilism, is a really interesting starting point for a social discussion. People will brag about what they don't believe, but won't talk about what they do believe, or display art that they pretend that they would be ashamed to really enjoy.
I think the problem is that people don't know what they believe. They don't even know that they believe anything. The canned answers are inadequate, but they manage neither to rationalize and complete these for themselves, or to find other things to believe in. They believe incoherent and contradictory things, and pretend belief in nothing. Unfortunately, believing nothing is just as useless a way to go through life as believing everything.
There is an attack that is often made on skeptics. "Oh, you don't believe in anything." However, the skeptics I know have unusually strong beliefs, and understand that their beliefs have implications in the world they live in. That is what makes them skeptics.
In this vein, there was a great article in Spy magazine about a decade ago on "irony". It even had Chevy Chase grinning on the cover and making the quote symbol with his fingers. I'll have to dig that up again.
I think this quote expresses it beautifully:
Simpsons, Homerpalooza
Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Teen1: I don't even know anymore.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
It isn't that hard to plug in words that make sense while preserving her delicate lyrical cadence. For instance:
It's a black fly in your chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it a bummer, don't you think?
What's good for the syndicate is good for the country. --Milo Minderbinder
Headline:
"PM4RK5, master of the inability to discern syntax from semantics, claims that an article about a word's definition is an article about grammar. Yawning ensues."
There are a few reasons why we think the Americans have no sense of irony. First, theirs is rather an optimistic culture, full of love of country and dewy-eyed self-belief and all the things that Europe's lost going through the war spindryer for the thousandth time.
Britain hasn't lost any of those things. They may not love their Prime Minister, but their (IMO, I am American after all) absurd fascination with their own royal family and general dislike of all intrusions American underscores a nationalism that is more bitter than American's, but no less devoted.
Our "dewy-eyed self-belief" is a result of global naivete combined with the biggest guns of any country on the planet. No surprises there.
Actually, I think Americans aren't ironic because we don't need to be. It's easier for us to actually say what we mean than to pretend to be cleverer than anyone else by saying the exact opposite.
Anyway. Ego mode off, back to your regularly scheduled planet.
That's why we say 'Love your brother.'
/Spinal Tap
Well we don't LITERALLY say it...
We don't even LITERALLY mean it, either.
"It's like goldy, but with iron."
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Sarcasm is very frequently just irony with teeth. Witty sarcasm is almost always irony with teeth. I don't think one is necessarily confusing sarcasm with irony when calling a sarcastic statement irony, because the two are most definitely not mutually exclusive.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've had it, I'm gone; this is just about the most inane thread on ./, ever.
You can have my (relatively) low UID, I'm going to head on over to the mental institution so I can have free Jello and have my brains properly ooze out of my ears like they so want to right now.
That definition lists "irony particles". Will it turn out that the world is built out of "irony particles" and "sarcasm particles", held together by "humerons"?
For crissakes, my ID on /. is ironic! This story was like... writen for confused philosophers everywhere, who supposedly sharp of mind and thought, remain more confused than those who don't try to understand the world.
Why slashdot? Why not?
You guys are so busy quibbling over the definition of "irony" that you are missing the entire point of the article. They are trying to say how 9/11 has changed our view of the world. It's actually suprising how every society on earth can be shaped by conflict, such as war, religion, etc.
For a second there, I thought I was reading Plastic.
Read, L
No, I find THIS ironic. Read about our good friend Ashcroft in his article entitled "Keep Big Brother's hands off the Internet"
I wasn't aware hypocrites came in his size.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?
--
+1 Ironic
(or maybe -1 Ironic)
A "living" language must be defended; otherwise, it can lose purpose and limit one's thought. Hitler's people knew this. (see 1984 also) Words can be attacked and destroyed. By taking words away from people, they can not as clearly express themselves. It is completely possible to actually change the way people think by playing around with the language. A redefined, vague, or banned word can have far reaching effects on a population---and they will not even notice it. Most people think in their language. (some hear other voices in their head...) If a group of words were removed or made ineffective a whole concept would be difficult to even think about in that language (there would still be that 1% who would "excape".) In fact, the more I learn about it, the more I realize the incredible power applied social science has. Forget the nukes, there are bigger things out there you'll not even know are coming. It IS being attempted all the time. It also occurs naturally. The orginal must be kept intact. If IRONIC becomes a vague catch all word, the ability to express REAL ironic situations will deminish.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It was really great.
Ok, so now you basically Indians were forming rape gangs. Does the word, "savage" mean anything to you?
>but a large part of traditional warfare was >about nonlethal methods of capturing and >acquring new members for their tribe (a crucial >source of genetic diversity).
The fact that you are willing to overlook slavery in native americans while at the same time savaging europeans is ridiculous.
Besides, your whole basis of native americans being nice to each other is completely wrong. they hunted all the ice age big game to extinction. the aztecs and incas and mayans were all huge warmongers... every great native american civilization were butchers par excellent. but oh, they lost to the europeans, so, they must be saints.
by your logic, those poor germans were unjustly persecuted in world war II, and, all of that talk about the evils of national socialism is just a capitalist myth.
This is my sig.
That is the worst article I have ever started to read in my life!
. . . in most texts I've read, sarcasm is indeed considered a type of irony. The distinguishing difference, is that irony is marked by its subtlty, whereas sarcasm describes language that is much more harsh and meant to wound. Irony proper doesn't exist merely to wound, but sarcasm does.
Thanks to Steve Kilbey of The Church for this one.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, and where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"-T.S.Eliot
> Back then, every culture always used every weapon at its disposal. Holding back from using certain types of
> weaponry is a 20th century innovation.
This is, broadly speaking, true as YOU mean it, and I find it telling just exactly how you mean it.
You see, back then, every culture didn't *ALWAYS* use every weapon at its disposal. They had these short periods of, uh, what did they call it? Oh, yeah... peace. That was the time when, typically, they weren't killing off their neighbors with every weapon at their disposal.
(Incidentally, there were certainly attempts before the 20th century to ban certain weapons as 'too awful to use'. They just weren't terribly effective, by and large.)
But, to get back to my point, people weren't killing Native Americans when they were in any kind of declared war (or even enmity) with them... they were killing them with gifts of 'friendship'. Which, in most of the tribes, would probably have been looked on with just as much loathing and disgust as it occasionally sparked in the eightteenth and nineteenth centuries back in Europe.
I will politely refrain from comparing you to anyone, ironically or not. But I will not politely refrain from wondering why I'm posting this history lesson in a thread dedicated to irony, when it has nothing whatever to do with irony.
No, that's not ironic.
No, that's not either.
Oh, go to hell.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I blame Alanis Morissette for the constant misuse of the word ironic.
500 Slashdotters trying too hard.
Read below (or above) before modding down...
Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
a) demonstrate that the author has a better grasp of the meaning of irony than most people and thus establish her credibility as an authority on the matter;
and b) clarify the meaning of irony so as to avoid misusage in the future.
The author has, in fact:
a) contradicted herself on a number of occasions and chosen some poor examples of irony (normally "situational irony", which the author clearly hasn't quite got her head around);
and b) spawned a Slashdot article full of some terrible mis-uses of the word (but then perhaps that is not ironic, as we know that few Slashdotters actually read the articles anyway and one should expect the outcome).
My particular issue is with the statement:
"Naturally, irony was back within a few days, not least because of the myriad ironies contained within the attack itself (America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic)."
Why is America's funding of al-Qaida ironic? It's not. America weren't funding them with any expectation that it would protect them from terrorist attacks. They weren't funding them with a view to reducing terrorism anywhere in the world. The outcome here isn't linked with any expectations. It's just a very black coincidence. Equally, why is the bombing of bombs and peant butter ironic? It's certainly contradictory, but ironic? I don't see the discrepancy between meaning and action there.
Personally, I think that the author might have benefitted from reading this article on the meaning of irony (and with useful links to a range of literary terms).
There were a few other areas that I didn't particularly agree with the article on, but a dissection of those does not make for a readable Slashdot comment. Still, I enjoyed it and it was definitely worthy of the label "News for Nerds". My brain has been pleasantly engaged (a thought, does Nerd necessarily == pedant?).
Oh, and btw, is the best use of irony in the article the statement in footnote 1?
"I would strongly urge you not to read any more footnotes, they are only here to make sure I don't get in trouble for plagiarising."
I am sure that successful irony shouldn't have to be flagged (as with the author's more fallible attempts in the main body of the article).
Cheerio,
BB
Just now I have realized the extent of the vaccuum left in Seinfeld's wake. And you know what.. I don't feel the least bit bad about it. Truly, we have witnessed the peak of entertainment television. I might live to be one hundred, and not experience the likes of this show again.
Actually, I think Americans aren't ironic because we don't need to be. It's easier for us to actually say what we mean than to pretend to be cleverer than anyone else by saying the exact opposite.
That's why France irritates the US so much: they reserve the right to be as un-ironic as the Hyper-power's government. It would be an act of deviousness if they had relabeled themselves to the Freedom Republic three months ago. But for that you need a sense of irony to begin with...
they support President Bush for re-election.
That's not conservative, that's just plain idiotic.
There's a difference you know.
Well maybe not.
Ummm, and the subject line is ironic, in one reading.
sarcasm (särÆkaz Ãm), n.
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
2. a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark: a review full of sarcasms.
[1570-80; LL sarcasmus Gk sarkasmós, deriv. of sarkázein to rend (flesh), sneer; see SARCO-]
--Syn. 1. sardonicism, bitterness, ridicule. See irony 1. 2. jeer.
That's all. I just really hate her.
Mostly for when I have the pleasure of noticing some irony, then get the pleasure removed by hearing her whingeing caterwaul in my mind's ear, every time, for over seven years now.
According to Bill Bryson, Troublesome Words, the difference is one of intent:
but apologises:Fowler's Modern English Usage offers the following grid:
These days you only find true irony in songs or poems. Here are some examples
Liam Lynch - United States of Whatever
George Michael - Kill the dog
Maybe we should count the last decade or so as a new era in irony. The era in which irony more or less disappeared from mainstream text media but increasingly appeared in musical form...
and we do - no other way to get along with these days' matters...
Raining on your wedding day is ironic because it's ment to be good luck when it rains. In reality though rain is probably one of the last things you want happening on your wedding day, hence the irony.
:/
I have no idea what the rest are about though
Ironic
adj 1: humorously sarcastic or mocking; "dry humor"; "an ironic remark often conveys an intended meaning obliquely"; "an ironic novel"; "an ironical smile"; "with a wry Scottish wit" [syn: dry, ironical, wry] 2: characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is; "madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker"; "it was ironical that the well-planned scheme failed so completely" [syn: ironical]
"Seek and you shall find!"
"Irony is not a black fly in your chardonnay. Irony is a Scotsman cloning a sheep. Irony is the renaming of an airport after the president who fired all the air traffic controllers."
Sabrina Matthews,
Friday Night Standup
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
You know, the books with words in them.
4 88 &lastnode_id=152247
The words are still there, there is just a dearth of people with the education to make use of them.
Irony has always had a meaning of poetic tragedy, or rather where one attempts to effect a result and actually causes the opposite. i.e. There is irony in the situation. It's never meant coincidence though...
It can be a difficult concept, no wonder Americans have such difficulty when their grasp of the language is so tenuous anyway.
A good example from Ed Byrne about Ms Morissette[1].
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=622
[1] I'm making Ms Morissette an honourary American due to her lack of understanding of irony.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
have you ever used the word "ironic?" :)
Irony , actually
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Americans cannot do 'irony' because they lack a language of their own. Another reason Americans lack irony, is they cannot win a war without the Brits. Irony is truth that hurts in a funny way.
that with off topic stories like this, /. has become more like kuro5hin.
-- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
Americans cannot do 'irony' because they lack a language of their own. Another reason Americans lack irony, is they cannot win a war without the Brits.
Not only one thing she sings about is ironic.
Ironic is when I cry "wooo shiiit" meaning the perfect opposite, e.g. "wooo great!" "WONDERFUL" or similar.
The definition given here (as somebody else pointed out) is pretty fine: click.
This problem seems to be peculiar to English (or American English). In Russian, for example, there is no such problem. So the reasons, whatever they are, must be country-specific.
Disclaimer: this is not ironic.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Dictatorial dictionarians can just choke on the wonder of it all.
Ever heard of the word minatory? Consider this storied minatoried.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Situational irony occurs when the outcome of a situation is other than is expected. The key word here is EXPECTED - not just shitty. If you cease racing to avoid an accident and take up announcing at the track, we EXPECT that you have put yourself in a safer position. By not racing you are no longer in danger of being injured (or killed) by a race car accident.
The IRONY here is that, after the retiring, he *was* injured by a racecar, in less likely circumstances. That is situational irony.
Now, a very technical linguist might argue that there is assumed risk by simply being at the raceway, and what we're hearing is a tale of bad luck that might be humorous, but I'd refute that irony doesn't require the observer to take into account details. It's not a thesis, it's an outcome contrary to evidence that leads us in an exepcted direction.
What would make the situation more accetably ironic is if the ambulance, travelling at regular speeds on the way to the hospital, got into an accident and killed him.
Irony age over? Great! Bring on the Steely age!
This institution, which is not governmental, is the Real Academia de la Lengua Española [Royal Academy of the Spanish Lenguage] (founded in 1713), and in fact it coordinates its activities (including the dictionary) with the other 21 Academies of the Spanish Language around the world, including the Academia Cubana de la Lengua [Cuban Academy of the Language], through the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española [Association of Academies of the Spanish Language], founded in 1951. (There's even a North-american one.)
So there is a singular "authority" for the Spanish Language, although the mission of the RAE is not to dictate what Spanish is, but to reflect its evolution while dampening the passing fads and trying to influence the word choices to keep them true to the language essence. It works more as a reference than as an authority, since a word not being in the dictionary doesn't mean that it's not Spanish, but that it hasn't proved to be stable yet. If the word sticks then it's added to the dictionary corpus, which includes the American and Philippine contributions.
Finally, you mention Cuban Spanish as if it was particularly different from the norm (which is coordinated as said above), but in fact it's quite close. In my experience, the Argentinian variant, which is heavily influenced by Italian, differs more.
Sure people use informal speaking every day, as in Spain, but we all share a common reference point on what our language is.
Here is another example of a slow news day at Slashdot.
CmdrTaco: If you are listening--it would be very nice to be able to moderate the articles as well as their replies.
I would moderate this article as "off-topic". It is not "News for Nerds" and it does not "matter."
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
I think thats Ironic!
A word means whatever the person who uses it intends. If people choose to use the word "ironic" to means something other than what the dictionary says it means, then the dictionary is out of date. The English language is a moving target, and I wish the vocabulary whiners of the world would wake up and just go with the flow.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
I hereby patent Irony as my invented religon.
It's everywhere so much it's overpowering, and in this we take heart.
A blog I run for the wealth
Too bad there are plenty of Americans who don't fit the stereotype but that the rest of the world is ignorant of. Unfortunately we tend to get shouted down by the idiot majority who define the "Ugly American" stereotype (Which is well deserved by about 90% of the population I might add). These are the idiots who voted for Bush thinking that he would actually make their lives better. When he hasn't yet... (No the tax cuts aren't going to help you unless you are rich) The idiots who think that great American television is reality TV, The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Talk TV. When there are plenty of really great programs on PBS that are much more cultured and truly representative of true American artistry. The same goes for movies. Excluding the blockbuster adventure films that come out every summer and the rest of the crap (Films that aspire to be "Jackass the Movie"), what's left? Pretty much nothing. Meanwhile, great films like Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, Stanger then Paradise and Mytery Train are virtually unknown to the majority of the populace. Why is this?
There are two factors that cause this problem:
1. The unjustifiable and blind acceptance of greed in the form of an overzealous desire to make lots of money.
2. Fear of appearing different by making it obvious that you ARE inteligent. It's uncool to be smart right now. Look at Eminem, Kidd Rock and X-Tina. They exemplify the worst of American types and yet they are adored by many as heroes.
If you analyze our society as a whole, you will see that stupidity is rewarded and intelligence is, well... embarassing. I think the best example I've seen of this in a long time was when I saw two programs featuring "Robot Wars" on television. One was the original British programme that was hosted by the guy from Red Dwarf and the other was the American version (which I could only stomach for about five minutes). In the British version, the two teams were interviewed after the match. Both teams displayed an exhuberance about the fact that they got to build some cool machines and show them on the programme. The losing team even politely congratulated the victors with no apparent venom. The American version was very different. It exposed that horrid underside of American culture that still proves we are STILL teenagers in an adult world. The winners were still trash talking (The horrible "WE RULE!!!" syndrome that seems to afflict so many of my countrymen) the losing team and both sides were less interested in why they were there (to show off some cool robot desings) than just being on TV.
The saddest thing about the fact that Americans seem so driven to be "Winnners" and to "RULE" and to always side with the "winning team" is that this is the behavior of the insecure teenaged loser. There is no sincerity in the bonds that those types of teens make with peers. Think back to Jr. High/Middle School or whatever it's called in your part of the world. Remember those wormy little losers who nobody popular liked but they would always try to glom on to anyone who WAS popular and would make fun of anyone who was considered a loser? They actually expected to get in with the popular kids by making fun of losers even though they didn't stand a chance. Hehe... well, that seems to perfectly describe most Americans perfectly. Think about this. All those farmers and factory workers who voted for George W. Bush are just like this wormy kid. They think that if they side with the percieved winners (The neocons), that they will somehow be carried up to that magical place where the streets are paved with gold and wealth abounds. These are the same people who buy into the latenight ads on television that say that "YOU TOO CAN BE RICH!" by owning your own turnkey business. Only to be disappointed when the president cuts funding for farms or does something that affects their factory jobs or pay... or that get rich quick scheme put them in debt. Sadly, this is the typical American. The one who is suckere
Un-news
Heheh, that was kinda the point ;-)
lol
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, invoking the images of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan as role models in his fight against alzheimer's.
MjM
(hint:All three were shot)
Flag stickers do not a patriot make
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
And here's the original story: God is an Iron
A man, a plan, a canal: Suez!
But our state is different than most (New Mexico and Arizona have a lot as well). Oh and it's not Dagos it's Degos and they aren't latin american they are italian (dego and wop ~ with out papers) were a few of the terms used (I am italian decent).
I don't agree with what happened to the American Indian populations when North/Central/South America was settled by the europeans. However if you are so naive to assume that they could exist in a world where everyone would just leave them alone because they were there first, you don't understand how the world works. Social Darwinism is always at play. It's not right or wrong, it's nature. Only the strongest and quickest to adapt survive (and those that latch on and follow the leaders). It's all just timing and luck anyway. I love the American Indian people, they have been royally screwed. Unfortunately to survive in todays society the skills are sorely lacking based on their social support systems and their norms/mores.
Made even more ironic by his attempt to explain that he knows the difference between Canadians and "Americans," when in fact Canadians are Americans.
(and for the irony-impaired, don't bother to point out that "American" is a common term for a U.S. citizen, I am well aware of that!)
I suppose that Europeans treated the natives with respect and dignity in South and Central America, where there are still many Indians (or whatever politically correct term you prefer) today. Yes, many injustices have been done by settlers, but you can't simplify it to whities == evil and everyone else == victim.
By the way, were your ancestors the tyrannical Europeans or the Native American victims? If you are of Native American descent, I can respect your views about whether certain names are offensive or not. Otherwise, you don't speak with authority. I'd be amused if I heard of a team called the "Whities" or "Honks" or "Nerds," but I wouldn't be offended.
Yep, it goes to show that people don't stop to think about what they're saying. It's just a bad habit, you see it all the time. "Literally" should be obvious from it's relation to "literary," "literature," etc. You take the meaning from the text, not the (figurative) subtext.
There was an "Arlo and Janis" comic strip a while back which I thought was kind of cute:
Gene: "...and then Tom picked up the ball and ran with it, and Steve and I literally killed him!"
Arlo: "Do you know what 'literally' means?"
Gene: "Uh, no."
Arlo: "Good."
America Ain't Ironic, is humor, I guess.
..., I have no sense of irony?
... globally. Ancient and modern Europe, China, Russia, India, Israel, Arabia, Africa, US, ... we all have lost nothing of value that was not murdered, buried, and/or thrown on other's shores or pushed across some other's border at the lofty, faithful, righteous urgings of aristocrats, politicians, and Gods' servants of satan [Today AKA: Pastor, Priest, Rabbi, Mullah, ...]. ... I think maybe we are soulless animals with diminished capacity for thinking, caring, and feeling for our children, family, and friends.
... historical recognition .... The same goes for the pick-pocket evangelist, preachers, dictators, politicians, ... that always know the words of scam and/or god when asking for money and followers for the slaughter. They silently support the hate and bigotry murderous rhetoric that shake-&-bake (shake'em down and bake'em when done) religious and political leaders always use to justify murder in the name of god/country/power/destiny/....
Americans have no sense of irony.
I am an American
"Irony is when all your children die before you!"
"Cruel Irony is when, by acts of war, all your children die before you!
First, ours' is a rather cynical ethos, full of love for a U.S. Constitution for Business and The People, accepting of a Capitalistic Democracy for the Wealthy and the Worthless people.
Our country, with dewy-eyed self-belief and grief, contains (we think) the descendants of folks that have supported and died in every war fought by humanity in history
I sometimes think humanity would be much better off as thinking, caring, feeling, and soulless animals with no afterlife potential [AKA: heavenly reward]. From human historical behavior and my refusal to believe that God and/or property ever justifies war and murder
I am an old war-monger. I believe in hunting down and killing without mercy or trial humans that would murder other humans to obtain personal power/privilege/wealth
When you prosecute a war it will not end until your enemies die or unconditionally surrender. Sorry about the collateral men, women, children, pets, and property, but what's war without casualties (Yep, that's right PEACE!). All other conflicts are just political surrenders creating future problems for our descendants. It is better that our children were not born, then they fight a war/conflict.
The question: am I expressing irony, cynicism, faith, or honesty?
HAVE FUN - OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
From Tom the Dancing Bug
That is all.
Reminds me of a Sleater-Kinney lyric, from the song #1 Must Have:
And I think that I sometime might have wished
For something more than to be a size six
But now my inspiration rests
In between my beauty magazines and my credit card bills
But see, you're ignoring the fact that there is a reason for this sort of behavior, and it's not just that it's "fun" or "cool". It's a defense, a protection against exploitation and mockery. Caring too much about something, and investing too much of yourself into it, is a pretty sure way to get yourself hurt. People are apathetic because they've been fucked over in the past, and they won't take the risk again.
It's like the recent divorcee who confides that she feels "too smart to ever fall in love again", except it's on a cultural scale. The only resolution that I can see is for people to stop being assholes to each other - but this, of course, leads us into the prisoner's dilemma, and so it's not really much of a resolution at all.
But would it be used on ironic posts, or self-referentially ironic mods?
>> This is called the Sapir-Wolfe Hypothesis
:)
Er, that's "Sapir-Whorf," actually factually, pedantically semantically.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
This may be the most ironic post I've ever read. You were bored because no one was discussing the topic and they were instead complaining about it, so you posted another topic complaining about people saying they are bored instead of discussing the original topic.
I think we have a winner here. Nicely done.
I sent this to the Guardian. Hope they print it:
In Zoe Williams' 6/28 column, The Final Irony, she points out some
cases of alleged irony that are, in fact, not ironic. Most of these are
spot-on, a couple are debatable (but probably not ironic), but there is
one case where she is clearly wrong.
She cites an example where she be[*] holding a party, and expects her
father to come, but he does not. It certainly isn't cosmic irony or
verbal irony. It is, however, probably situational irony. The
expectation is not in accord with what will happen. One may argue that
such an example may or may not be situational irony, but it is certainly
dramatic irony. If we assume that this situation is fictional (and I
think it's easy enough to argue that it is), then it must be dramatic
irony. We, the audience, know something that she (here, a fictional
character) does not.
And if you think that it's not dramatic irony because Ms. Williams is not
fictional, you'd better be prepared to argue that it's not dramatic irony
when Henry V visits his troops in Act IV, Scene 1.
Now, for the question that you really want to hear: is it ironic when
someone misuses the term irony in an article about the correct use of the
term irony? No, it's just wrong. Irony deals with beliefs and actions,
not beliefs and facts. If The Guardian were to publish a letter which
defined irony in a manner inconsistent with Ms. Williams beliefs, that
would be ironic.
But other than that, a good article. And I'm not effecting irony.
[*] Yes, this use of subjunctive is deprecated, but it is right.
So, some third rate hack who cannot distinguish between a man, and something he does (as in "Beethoven's symphonies are better than Tchaikovsky"), is lecturing the rest of us on the correct usage of words. How ironic is that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."