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."

Comments

South Park episode display classic irony

[spun]

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.

how extraordinary

[n3k5]

From the article:

With emails, people with a lot of time on their hands can, obviously, give themselves room to develop an ironic theme, but for people with jobs, e-etiquette demands instant response, which brings you down to the very rudiments of irony - I Love My Boss; I'm Delighted That My Ex Is Going Out With That Attractive Woman; I Really Couldn't Be More Pleased That You've Lost a Stone.

I don't want to object that these aren't fine examples of rudimentary irony, but one could argue that they are mainly sarcastic. Zoe Williams laments that irony is often mixed up with hypocrisy, cynicism, laziness, and coincidence, but completely fails to mention sarcasm. Maybe this isn't a severe omission in the context of this article, because many more sarcastic statements actually show features of irony as there are ironic statements you could consider sarcastic.

That's why English is a "living" language.

[suso]

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.

Re:Words change in meaning over time

[Titusdot Groan]

The problem we are facing is convergence; multiple words meaning the same thing and losing their old meaning. This is a problem in that we no longer have a word attached to the old concept.

This is analogous to 1984 where the language was slowly restricted to eliminate concepts and hence control thought -- which is double plus ungood as it is hard to form complex thought if your vocabulary is limited.

For instance, if we allow irony to come to mean coincidence or poetic tragedy then what word do we use when we really mean ironic?

Oh knock it off will you!

[tjstork]

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.

Self-important Brits?

[djkitsch]

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...

An ever worse word...

[evilviper]

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.