There is a disease infecting masses of Americans today: the misuse of the word irony. There is nothing to make a anglophile shiver like hearing people use this word wrong, especially when so many consider it integral to our culture.
Here is the dictionary definition:
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
Here is an example of usage I just made up:
Correct usage: (On a very cold day) "What lovely weather we are having! I'm going to strip down to my bikini briefs!" (Irony expresses the OPPOSITE of literal meaning)
Incorrect usage: (On a very hot day) "How hot it is! Ironically, I took my bikini briefs out of the clean laundry this morning!" (This is a coincidence.)
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3 comments:
So, was Alanis Morisette correct or incorrect when she said: "It's like rain on your wedding day?"
Here's a great respons to that question:
http://www.copyblogger.com/did-alanis-morissette-get-irony-right/
Oooh, I have such things to say about this! I've always thought that every single line in the Alanis Morisette song is very much *not* an example of irony: black fly in Chardonnay, rain, etc. These things all just seem unfortunate--winning the lottery and dying the next day? That's terrible! BUT, really, one could say that writing a song about irony in which nothing is actually ironic might be the best tribute to irony. For, as LRo notes, irony opposes the literal--and a song devoted to irony filled with ironic instances would be so literal. If Friedrich Schlegel could have heard Alanis, I feel this is what he would have concluded. (And p.s.: I write this not having looked at the Alanis blog... I fear someone else out there has also come up with my Alanis insight, which would be a crushing blow to my fragile ego.)
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