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Isn't It Ironic?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the don't-you-think dept.

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."

3 of 683 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Obligatory Blackadder reference by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 5, Informative

    How ironic that this is definition is actually valid and in the dictionary.

    Check the Websters Unabridged Dictionary definition here.

    Go figure.

  2. George Carlin quote by xYoni69x · · Score: 5, Informative
    I quote George Carlin (this quote is taken from his book Brain Droppings - thanks to Google Cache).
    Irony deals with opposites, it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same home-town, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is coincidence ... If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a truck, he is a victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of irony.
    --
    void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
  3. Re:So, is this at all ironic? by arunkv · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.
    Not to defend VA or any of the other "dot-com"s, but from the article you linked to:
    If the companies wind up paying the $1 billion, the money will come from their insurers.