What Is Irony?
Since this is a prescriptivists view, there will be very strict rules for recognizing irony. It is all actually very simple, however; and to save you from having to read a definition over and over again to comprehend the meaning of irony, we will be basing this tutorial on examples of irony, to help ingrain the patterns of recognition in your mind.
Do not be discouraged if you have already availed yourself of a lexicon to learn the definition of some of the words in this tutorial. It is only by exercising your flaccid mind that you will be able to grasp the subtle intricacies of irony.
Before we move on to the first example, it behooves me to quote Henry Watson Fowler, when he said that "the surface meaning [of irony] and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same."
Though going about learning what a word means is not usually best facilitated by learning its antonyms, it is still a useful exercise to detail what irony is not, by examples.
What Irony Is Not:
- An escalator leading up to a gym.
- Every supposedly ironic event on Alanis Morissette's song 'Ironic'.
- Losing money in the stock market, when you expected your stocks to make you money.
- Locking yourself in your house after installing a brand new lock.
Four examples of what irony is not should be enough for now. Let us now move to a discussion about why there is so much disagreement about the true definition of irony. While writing this tutorial, I felt it would be necessary to not just study the dictionary meaning of irony, but also to delve into the minutia of what people think irony is. Now, mind you, I did not go about asking English professors, nor did I ask the average Joe. The reason I didn't ask an English professor is because I did not want a purely academic view of what irony is, or should be. And the reason that I did not go about asking the average Joe, is because he is an idiot (Yes! I make wild statements like that). Of course at this point you should be asking yourself about my research methods. If you aren't asking yourself that question, you probably wasted your time reading this tutorial, because it is extremely likely that you didn't understand it enough for it to have made a difference for you. But let us assume that if you are at all interested in sarcasm and irony that you have some semblance of intelligence, and are indeed asking that question of yourself.
In answer to your question, the research for this irony tutorial was conducted entirely online. If you are one of those pricks who is going to not give much validity to information gathered online, then I recommend that you do like the average Joes and click the road. For those of you who are still here (there really shouldn't be many of you at this point), I will now tell you of what I found.
It was quite interesting that I was not able to find at least two relatively authoritative views which matched. I actually came across a site by someone who absolutely blasted the Merriam-Webster Dictionary's and its linguists--I'm assuming they actually employ linguists–stating that the meanings of words could not be truly understood from a few lines written by "random jackass[es]". Yes, he used that term, and I like him for it. If you just got a homoerotic image in your head, leave! That is another sign that you are too stupid to be reading this; your time would be better spent watching a VH1 top 10 program or an E! 101 list. Ok, back to the rant. But this really was not supposed to be a rant. Regardless, the lack of depth available through the online dictionaries, which our cynical friend has pointed out (in another rant about irony), is not necessarily a virus in our midst, but rather a reasonable source to start to understand the meaning of words. Some words will be straightforward enough where one will be able to understand the definition and be able to use it properly, and others will be complicated enough where even additional extensive research will turn up more ambiguities than clarifications.
With the above in mind, it behooves me to cut short this tutorial, and defer to a few articles which agreed on very few points. One thing that most everyone did agree on was that Alanis Morissette's couldn't recognize irony if her life depended on it.
Sources of Frustration
-
Irony Rant
-
Irony on Wikipedia
-
Irony According to the BBC
Introduction:
Recognizing Irony (Back)