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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."

15 of 683 comments (clear)

  1. Oh the humanity....... by crunchywelch · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...
    1. Re:Oh the humanity....... by Cliffy03 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      OK, is this ironic? My uncle quit stock car racing because my aunt was worried to much about him. So he decided to be a track announcer, and during the first race a car lost control and hit the tower. He broke his leg.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Nigel makes plans for you!
    2. Re:Oh the humanity....... by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Funny

      Was it your aunt who was driving the car?

  2. Oh, sweet irony by rgoer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's the big irony for this article: somehow, someone felt that it belongs under a heading that includes the phrase "stuff that matters."

  3. South Park episode display classic irony by spun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  4. I find it ironic that... by sailracer6 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot is discussing proper English usage.

  5. Obligatory Blackadder reference by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

    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.

  6. So, is this at all ironic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. 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.
  7. 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)))();
  8. MTV got it straight long ago... by gulfcoast · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  9. Isn't it Alanic? by aussie-oddball · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  10. What is Irony? by Simonetta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually, Irony is where the Iranians come from.

  11. THIS is irony.... by Yunzil · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot screencap