But exactly how does irony differ from related concepts like coincidence, paradox, satire, and parody? Things happen all the time, and sometimes things happen at the same time.
But does that make such juxtapositions ironic? And does it truly matter what we call them? Referring to coincidences as ironic raises the hackles of prescriptivists, who regard such usage with clear distaste.
For them, it represents a form of imprecision that debases the language — an unforced error that one should scrupulously avoid. From a family resemblance perspective, we might say that the concept of coincidence overlaps to some degree with the irony concept, but the number of attributes the two share is low. Coincidences may involve victims, humor, or criticism, but they are rarely truly humorous or poignant. In short, the family resemblance between coincidence and irony makes them more like cousins than siblings.
The battle over equating irony and coincidence has been raging for some time. Not every coincidence, curiosity, oddity and paradox is an irony, even loosely. Equating irony with coincidence is still viewed — at least in some quarters — as a semantic transgression, although attitudes appear to be softening.
Other disapproving voices have weighed in on this issue. Resistance to such uses remain strong. The panel has been asked repeatedly to weigh in on the acceptability of a sentence that describes a woman from Ithaca, New York, who moves to California, where she meets and marries a man who is also from upstate New York.
In , 78 percent of the panel rejected this usage. A survey from that contained the same sentence was deemed problematic by 63 percent of the panel, a figure that is lower than the earlier one but still a majority. Clearly, equating irony with coincidence is still viewed — at least in some quarters — as a semantic transgression, although attitudes appear to be softening. He is the 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 an irony. Other examples, however, appear to be more straightforward. Henry tells the story of Jim and Della, a young couple seeking the perfect Christmas presents for each other spoiler alert! Both of them sacrifice prized possessions to be able to afford their gifts. Della has her lustrous tresses shorn so that she can afford a platinum pocket watch fob for Jim. Jim sells his pocket watch to buy ornamental combs for Della.
Their actions thus destroy the value of the gifts that they exchange. The story is best described in terms of situational irony, with a dash of dramatic irony as well, since the reader is aware of the poignant outcome before Jim and Della meet to celebrate Christmas. It is worth asking oneself, before describing such occurrences, whether a juxtaposition is mundane that is, coincidental or more surprising, consequential, or significant — and therefore ironic.
Both situational irony and coincidence are used to refer to states of affairs that may be difficult to classify as clearly belonging to one concept or the other. The most we can say is that some people care about the distinction a great deal, and it is worth asking oneself, before describing such occurrences, whether a juxtaposition is mundane that is, coincidental or more surprising, consequential, or significant — and therefore ironic.
As with coincidence, irony is often conflated with the concept of paradox. Once again, the two concepts overlap to a certain degree, since both irony and paradox can involve juxtaposition, sometimes jarring incongruity, and deviation from expectations. Paradox, however, goes a step further and entails self-contradiction as an essential element.
The last song I played? Now, this may sound like a question for an English Basics class, but then what really is ironic? Is it that incongruent stuff? Is not that ironic in itself? Or just plain silly? O my English teacher, care to elaborate?
Hey, wait a minute! Ironic, huh? A little bit of irony, a lot of self-centric posturing, and that strangulated yodel thing she does with her voice. Sometimes irony requires an understanding of the subject that the reader my not possess, for example:. I wish I had the sneezlbat of Winkadeel, because then every one would realize what a truly great person I am.
Without understanding what both sneezlbat and Winkadeel mean the irony is lost. However change the sentence ever so slightly and you get:. I wish I had the morals of Paris Hilton, because then every one would realize what a truly great person I am. This brings up two of my favorite terms to describe irony…. Oh, come on. Seems to me that she decided after-the-fact that her examples of irony were in and of themselves ironic just to save face.
The defendants decided that they would instead mount a new kind of media spectacle intended to show total contempt for the rules, and to propagandize the viewing public into sharing their contempt. The prosecution was doing law; the defense countered with politics. A small Kurdish boy is sitting on the ground in a damp Polish forest, a few miles from the eastern border with Belarus. The air is heavy with cold and fog. The boy is crying. Around the boy, sitting in a circle, are his parents, uncles, and cousins, all from the same village near Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
There are 16 of them, among them seven children, including a four-month-old infant and an elderly woman who can scarcely walk. Through a translator, Anwar says that the family has been in this forest, moving back and forth between Poland and Belarus, for two weeks. They have eaten nothing for the previous two days.
When I first suspected that I was losing my hair, I felt like maybe I was also losing my grip on reality. This was the summer of , and although the previous three months had been difficult for virtually everyone, I had managed to escape relatively unscathed.
My loved ones were safe. I still had a job. Now my hair was falling out for no appreciable reason. The second time it happened, a little more than a year later, I was sure—not because of what was in the shower drain, but because of what was obviously no longer on my head.
One day, after washing and drying my hair, I looked at my hairline in the mirror and it was thin enough that I could make out the curvature of my scalp beneath it. When I looked at it, the panic became sharp.
If your reaction to this news is something like, Wait a second, what? NASA is trying to land people on the moon again? When you go to the airport, you see two kinds of security rules. Yeah, a song about irony that contains no valid examples of irony is itself very ironic! What if "Isn't it ironic? We might even assume this was the intended irony of the title, if its context were an era in which the audience generally understood irony.
Unfortunately, we can't assume Alanis intended it this way.
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