The Irony Thread

hedge said:
I think that's more of a coinidence, which is its own can of worms. I was trying to sing along with it, but the best I could do was a screeching falsetto. Come to think of it (but not ironically (I think)), that's about the best I can do with most songs on the radio...
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When typing that I was thinking in the voice of Alanis Morissette singing isn't it ironic. 😁
 
Looky what I just encountered after reading one second of the article at the link.
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The original photo is juxtaposition, not irony. I have trouble believing the OP didn't know that.
 
UNCatTech said:
I thought that was part of the fun of that song, that most, if not all, of the things she listed are not really ironic?
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You know, I've reconsidered my criticism of Alanis about that. It's true that, as written, nothing in the song is ironic. However, many of them are conducive to irony with additional facts. She's writing a song, not a dissertation so maybe we should cut her some slack.

For instance, rain on your wedding day is of course not ironic. But some people, fearing rain on their wedding day, intentionally hold weddings in places where precipitation is rare. And if you scheduled your wedding in the desert to avoid rain, and on that day, it rains in the desert for the only time that year and it doesn't rain at home -- that's certainly ironic.

If a ride used to be free, and then the operator decided to charge money, and upon learning that there would be a pre-pay discount, you pre-paid, and then the operator scrapped the charge money plan without a refund, that would be ironic.

Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife -- all right, I give up on that. Irredeemable. Maybe the irony is that Alanis thinks people can relate to that and it's why she chose it, only to find out that almost nobody has experienced the problem of excessive spoonery.
 
superrific said:
You know, I've reconsidered my criticism of Alanis about that. It's true that, as written, nothing in the song is ironic. However, many of them are conducive to irony with additional facts. She's writing a song, not a dissertation so maybe we should cut her some slack.

For instance, rain on your wedding day is of course not ironic. But some people, fearing rain on their wedding day, intentionally hold weddings in places where precipitation is rare. And if you scheduled your wedding in the desert to avoid rain, and on that day, it rains in the desert for the only time that year and it doesn't rain at home -- that's certainly ironic.

If a ride used to be free, and then the operator decided to charge money, and upon learning that there would be a pre-pay discount, you pre-paid, and then the operator scrapped the charge money plan without a refund, that would be ironic.

Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife -- all right, I give up on that. Irredeemable. Maybe the irony is that Alanis thinks people can relate to that and it's why she chose it, only to find out that almost nobody has experienced the problem of excessive spoonery.
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Morissettean Irony is a special subset of irony which is best defined as "negative coincidence imbued with particular and important meaning".
 
superrific said:
The original photo is juxtaposition, not irony. I have trouble believing the OP didn't know that.
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Talk about a blast from the past! I can't believe this thread suddenly came up again.

I'll be honest with you all, I struggled mightily with irony in grad school. I guess I still don't know what it is, really. Something about the way my mind works, I can't fully understand it, at least in an academic sense. Perhaps why I couldn't get into grad school at Carolina. Always just a notch below.

But that's okay. I ain't writing no poetry or novel. Ain't filming no...well, film. I'm doing better now than I ever would have in academia. So cheers to irony, my old friend!
 
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superrific said:
You know, I've reconsidered my criticism of Alanis about that. It's true that, as written, nothing in the song is ironic. However, many of them are conducive to irony with additional facts. She's writing a song, not a dissertation so maybe we should cut her some slack.

For instance, rain on your wedding day is of course not ironic. But some people, fearing rain on their wedding day, intentionally hold weddings in places where precipitation is rare. And if you scheduled your wedding in the desert to avoid rain, and on that day, it rains in the desert for the only time that year and it doesn't rain at home -- that's certainly ironic.

If a ride used to be free, and then the operator decided to charge money, and upon learning that there would be a pre-pay discount, you pre-paid, and then the operator scrapped the charge money plan without a refund, that would be ironic.

Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife -- all right, I give up on that. Irredeemable. Maybe the irony is that Alanis thinks people can relate to that and it's why she chose it, only to find out that almost nobody has experienced the problem of excessive spoonery.
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Thank you for this re-assessment of the song. It's interesting. And I like Snoop Rob's contribution here.
 
MendotoManteo said:
What was posted here? Or am I in an ironic joke?
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Sorry, that's chrome browser. In the url is a link with words indicating an article about replacing chrome and other tech, and when I clicked the link I got that error in chrome.
 
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