h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

why do the english have such a finely tuned sense of irony. this is not a universal feature. in fact the more i "talk" to people around the wold the more i realise what a rare attribute it is. sadly so, i think.

I find it ironic that all the examples of supposedly ironic things in Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic" aren't actually ironic at all. For example, "An old man turned 98, he won the lottery and died the next day." That's not ironic, that's just incredibly bad luck. Isn't it ironic, don'tcha think?

And anyway, everyone knows what irony is. It's like goldy and bronzey, except it's made of iron.

hmmm - very good. trying to think of something suitably witty and even ironic to say. maybe that's it - with all this finely tuned sense of irony - i can't think of one ironic thing to say!

How ironic!

George Carlin ranted about that a bit in his book, _Braindroppings_. I believe one of his examples was: if a diabetic, on their way to the pharmacy, gets hit by a truck... it is not irony, it's a coincidence. However, if the truck is carrying a shipment of insulin, then it's ironic.

So if the old man who won the lottery had died because he was hit by the truck delivering his winnings, would that be ironic?

Now that I'm at home and have the book:

George Carlin on Irony

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance:

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, 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.

If a Kurd, after surviving a bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.

Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic.

(end quote)

Someone once tried to tell me that Morisette did that with her song intentionally--a lack of irony in a song called "isn't it ironic" so that it became ironic.

I don't know that I buy this, but I thought I'd share.

Just what the world needs - Alanis Morrisette apologists. I don't buy it one bit, I say she just doesn't know what irony is.

(Actually, for all my bashing of it, I've never heard the song. Isn't it ironic? Well, maybe just a little.)

It was the subject of a speech at a drama comp I was judging. I don't remember how I scored the poor girl.

Were you allowed to give minus figures?

so if she had died from disappointment when her score sucked, because she gave a speech about irony and failed to convince me that there was irony in Alanis Morisette's song "Isn't it Ironic?" then...


er--I would probably have some pretty annoyed parents or guardians, huh?

Yeah... and if it turned out her mother was Alanis Morisette...

Then I'd have a pissed off Alanis Morisette?

Wow i just revitalised a 43 week old forum!

ironically i myself am dead.

except no one answered until now, so that was not really a revitalization, but now I answered it, so it isn't ironic.