Number 82
From Dave Da Bee:
Ever since Alanis Morissette published her song "Ironic" in 1995, I've been bugged by the need to come up with a clear explanation (clear enough for her teen fans) of how wrong Alanis's examples were: the lyrics seem to completely misunderstand the word.Here are some examples snipped (out of sequence) from the lyrics:
It's like ra-a-ain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
A black fly in your chardonnay
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knifeBut how to explain to a kid what's wrong with these?? What IS, after all, "ironic"?
At the time, I said "Her examples seem to just be things that are frustrating or disappointing ~ and that's not ironic."
Some months later I finally found a great example: "He was struck and killed by an ambulance." Now THAT's ironic, Alanis. And it made the kid's eyes stop, and then float off to the side for a moment. Bingo: thought!
Tonight (9 years later) I finally hit on something that seems to do it for me: "Ironic" is when you'd expect something to help, but it does harm instead.
All of Alanis's examples brush up against that, in one way or another, but they usually bounce off askew. "Ten thousand spoons" isn't something that defeats the search for a knife; it merely does no good. Sure, the black fly spoils the chardonnay; but nobody expected it to be beneficial. And the traffic jam merely aggravates a situation ~ it doesn't have an effect that's opposite of what you'd expect.
So now I'm satisifed.
But it swings the other way, too: irony is present when good comes from something you'd expect would be harmful. At a convention where I was speaking, the fabulous authoress Robin Williams (not the comic), a vision of a visionary if ever I met one, mentioned a talk she was about to give, about the impact of computers on relationships. Back then, everyone was saying computers were depersonalizing things. But she saw that email and Instant Messaging were (ironically) bringing people together in ways that would create connections we never would have imagined in a pre-online world.
And that brings us right back to where we are ~ connected with each other, via email. (Not ironically.)
But tonight I checked again, and I see there's a whole new crop of online definitions, which I didn't find in past years. Google's "define: ironic" result included this: characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is; "madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker"; "it was ironical that the well-planned scheme failed so completely" (www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn).
Dave's right, "irony" is much misunderstood and misused, but we're here to help.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage quotes Philip Howard: "Ironically is a powerful and explicit word. It is being weakened by use as an all-purpose introductory word to draw attention to every trivial oddity, and often to no oddity at all."
Despite this weakening of meaning, you may remember that after the attack on the World Trade Towers, there was talk in the media about "the end of irony". This meant it would be impossible ~ forever, it seemed, as if there'd never been a catastrophe in the world before ~ to wryly comment on the incongruities between our ideals and the "real" world, to laugh at peculiar (not always bad) twists of fate. The pundits may have meant that people would be less sarcastic (more bitter than irony) and cynical (more negative and skeptical). They would speak more from the heart. But picking on irony was just a reaction to losing the impulse to joke immediately after 9/11.
Anyway, irony did not end on 9/11, notwithstanding the "End of Ironing" (Flak Magazine).
As usual, yourdictionary.com is helpful:
Usage Note: The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York. Some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us. By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.
The important idea here is "lessons about human vanity or folly." Susie's story, if she had moved to California to find a husband, might express the kind of gentle irony of "Gift of the Magi", O. Henry's story about a young married couple who have an ironic Christmas when the wife cuts off her hair and sells it to buy her husband a fancy chain for his watch, and he sells his watch to buy his wife a beautiful comb for her hair. But Morisette's "ra-a-ain on your wedding day" and "a black fly in your chardonnay" are events that are not under the control of human will, thus there is no irony.
On the flip side, "a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break" is no more ironic than your mother telling you to stop smoking, but a no-smoking sign in a cigarette factory is ironic, as is a smoking lounge in a cancer ward.
There's an excellent article on the meaning of "irony" and its supposed demise by Zoe Williams, including definitions and discussions of irony from the Greeks (eironeia = dissimulation) to Michiko Kakutani, with footnotes and everything.
By the way, Dave, authoress Robin Williams can be considered an author without raised eyebrows, although she does have one of those gender-unspecific names. Again, see yourdictionary.com:
Usage Note: Many critics have argued that there are sexist connotations in the use of the suffix -ess to indicate a female in words like sculptress, waitress, stewardess, and actress. The heart of the problem lies in the nonparallel use of terms to designate men and women. For example, the -or ending on sculptor seems neutral or unmarked. By comparison, sculptress seems to be marked for gender, implying that the task of sculpting differs as performed by women and men or even that the task should typically be performed by a man. For occupational titles, the use of -ess has been almost completely replaced by recently formed gender-neutral compounds such as flight attendant and letter carrier or by the -er/-or forms. The Usage Panel finds use of the -or suffix to refer to women perfectly acceptable. Ninety-five percent of Panelists approve of sculptor in the sentence The gallery is exhibiting work of sculptor Barbara Hepworth. Sculptress is far less accepted; sixty-five percent reject it in the sentence Georgia O'Keeffe is not as well known as a sculptress as she is as a painter. A few words ending in -ess, such as goddess and giantess, have long been established in the literature of religion and mythology and are unlikely to be construed as sexist when used in these contexts.
Basically, this ending is unnecessary and is being phased out in most usages ~ women are authors, actors, and poets; but the clumsy "flight attendant" and "chairperson" could have been handled better. The goddess and the lioness remain, but does anyone remember the Jewess and the Negress? Those terms were discarded for what I want to call obvious reasons, but maybe they're not so obvious. At worst they remind me of the terms for animals, but at best, they are inconsistent with English terms for the females of other groups ~ we have no Caucasioness, for instance. And why should we?
Also, "ess" is reminiscent of French diminutive endings like "ette" that English has borrowed and that are only occasionally useful when applied to people. "Ette" suggests littleness. College girls were once called, at least occasionally, "graduettes." And let us not forget the –ix suffix, as in the admirable aviatrix or the disturbing dominatrix. That ending can hardly be used now without irony.
Whenever you're in doubt about irony, or inclined to be a smart mouth, remember this admonition from Matthew 5:37: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Or else you could end up like the sarcastic clapping family on Saturday Night Live.
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