Are You Annoying?

cweditor writes "This Computerworld article looks at some habits of people in general and IT pros in particular that can drive co-workers crazy."

Comments

Re:The answer is

[ticklemeozmo]

Irony is one of those words that's very quickly being redefined by modern usage.

((please note, the usage of "you" in the following argument is defined as "you understood", the common plural usage. Not the singular usage. Or did that change?))

Ah, yes, the old "I'm too lazy to pick up a dictionary and find out what a word REALLY means so I'll just modify it" clause. While I am not picking on you in general, it does seem a custom to just change the meaning of a word. "moot", "hacker", and now an important literary term called "irony".

What about twenty, twenty-five years from now? Conversation will become more ambiguous (wait, that word still means 'open to more than one interpretation' right?). We, as a society, over time, have formulated words to more clearly define things. Take a look at any older language and you'll be hard pressed to find such modifiers as "terrible", "horrible", "fabulous", and "fantastic".

And now, just because someone doesn't feel like paying attention in English class, meanings of words get changed by the vulgar (definition 3). Years from now English classes will teach courses in "Irony: Not the modern kind, but the kind that employs such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect."

Why not just use a different word for what you mean? We have 26 letters, create a new word.

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Personally, my favorite response for the mis-use of irony is: "I believe thw word you were straining for was "coincidence". Irony deals with opposites, coincidence deals with things that are related. If a rescue helicopter happened to have killed the person they were trying to rescue, that would be irony. The fact that you are a moron and mixed up the definitions of 'irony' and 'coincidence' is just a coincidence".