
What is irony? With examples - ColinWright
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/what-is-irony-with-examples/
======
vacri
One of the ways that British English and US English differ seems to be in the
intentionality of 'irony'. In US English, it's perfectly acceptable for an
_intended_ situation to be ironic: "I put on a t-shirt with an ironic slogan,
before heading out for coffee". In British English, the mere act of
_intending_ the result means that the result is expected... and therefore not
ironic.

I first realised this when I heard some Americans say of a photo "The
photographer has positioned the model's foot ironically". This phrase does not
really scan in British English because the photographer intended the effect.

Note also that intention is different to awareness - the War on Drugs is
_intended_ to reduce crime, but a law enforcement participant can be fully
aware of the irony that it actually increases crime. It remains ironic because
it's not _intended_ to increase crime, but to reduce it.

This differentiation is not something I've seen in the definitions, but
something I've observed from usage. It seems also that a lot of people use
'irony' as a term when they should be using 'sarcasm'.

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brownbat
I've always found this debate a bit pedantic.

The definitions listed include, "incongruity between the actual result of a
sequence of events and the normal or expected result."

It's an odd definition to showcase to make the point that irony doesn't merely
mean "the unexpected."

The prescriptivists should note that they've been losing this fight over usage
since around the 1640s. And even if Alanis was the first to use the word in
this way, there's another very strict rule of English: you may extend the
meanings of words wherever you damn well please. If the extension is likely to
cause confusion about your intended meaning, that's on you.

I will posit that no use of the word 'ironic' to mean 'unexpected' has ever
confused anyone, except as to whether or not they should be an ass by pointing
out how much more they know about what's proper than the speaker.

~~~
aaron695
Wouldn't that mean bad grammar and misspellings are also fine?

~~~
pygy_
That's how languages evolve.

This doesn't mean that language should not be rigorously taught to children,
if only for the rigor.

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danso
> _Has Alanis Morissette spoiled irony for us forever? Perhaps my generation
> is just in recovery from her 1995 lyrics. What do you think – do you
> understand the meaning of irony? Do people around you?_

I personally believe in the theory that the fact that none of the examples in
"Ironic" are actually ironic _is what makes it all ironic_. So despite what
the OP implies, Alanis Morissette has actually pulled a good one over most
listeners.

Side note: One of the exchanges I remember most from my high school English
classes was when our teacher taught us the meaning of irony and someone asked,
"Is sarcasm irony?". My teacher paused and said, "Kind of, but it's the lowest
form of irony". The more I think about it, the more apt that description
seems.

~~~
gruseom
I like Ed Byrne's standup bit where he finds increasingly outlandish ways to
interpret the song that actually are ironic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg)

~~~
insin
He did a bit of that routine on the same stage as her once [1].

I don't buy the above theory because if looks could kill, that would have been
the end of Ed Byrne.

[1]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/3678531....](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/3678531.stm)

------
elou
The word takes its root from comedic wit, such as puns and comedies of error.
For example, in the musical, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"
there is a character who has searched for his missing children for decades. A
captain of the army comes to his town to wed a virgin concubine, only to find
out that she is actually his sister and they are children of the old man.
Furthermore, they were only reunited with their father because another
character, seeking to disrupt their marriage for the benefit of his master,
pretended to be a fortune teller that would help the old man find his kids and
then actually did, inadvertently, through his devious acts. That's ironic.
While also unexpected and coincidental, the irony stems from the
circumstantial nature of the event.

Rain on your wedding day is not ironic. Holding your wedding in April in
Arizona with the theme "April Showers", knowing that it very rarely rains in
Arizona in April and thus making light of the point, and then having it rain
in the middle of your ceremony...that would be ironic.

From Wikipedia's article on the word, the best description I found was "a
contradictory outcome of events __as if in mockery of the promise and fitness
of things __". It is the comedic relief that comes from recognizing the
curveballs you are thrown just when you have it all figured out. Often, it's
the situations that help the underdog.

Generally speaking, because they are circumstantial, most ironies must be
deliberate or else unique to that situation. A "No Smoking" sign on top of a
poster of a smoking Sherlock Holmes (seen in the Wikipedia article) is not in
of itself ironic. However, someone deliberately placing a no smoking sign atop
that poster would be. This photo is ironic because it is unique to the
situation: [http://bit.ly/6SqBsD](http://bit.ly/6SqBsD)

While we're on the conversation, can we please stop using the word "literally"
to mean something happened, as in "I literally ate the whole sandwich." That
implies that you did not do something figuratively, but there is no figure of
speech having to do with eating a sandwich. It is an explanatory word, not an
emphasis. "He literally went around the world in 80 days" is an accurate way
to describe your friend's 80 day trip across 4 continents. "Did you hear? NASA
is building a spaceship that can literally travel faster than the speed of
light." Accurate. "I literally worked for 12 hours straight on this"...please
revise and resubmit!

~~~
gavinpc
"Literally" is a lost battle. Literally.

~~~
troels
There was an actual battle?

~~~
Ygg2
Yes, at the field of Litterality? Weren't you there? At least figuratively.

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nsmartt
This article didn't really clear up the definition for me.

What are the factors that determine the expected result?

Is it ironic that complaining about Facebook on Facebook is not ironic?

~~~
UntitledNo4
It is, but only if you're Mark Zuckerberg. And even then, it would be so if
you meant it as a private message to the Facebook executives and it ended up
being public due to privacy settings changes which you designed.

Edit: Actually, I misread your last sentence. It still isn't ironic, unless
you were trying to teach someone what irony was and that was your example of
irony.

~~~
nsmartt
My reasoning is this:

\- It would be ironic to complain about a less famously terrible social
network on said social network

\- It wouldn't be ironic with Facebook because it's popular opinion that
Facebook is terrible and that its users are prone to complaining on Facebook

\- It would be ironic that it's not ironic to complain on Facebook about
Facebook on Facebook because complaining about X social network on X social
network would be ironic

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rdtsc
It is always an interesting AI problem to solve.

Could you come up with an algorithm for a computer to detect irony? It seems
like an interesting and hard problem.

There is statistical sentiment analysis and that seems relatively easy. But
one would need to understand the presented situation and see if it is
plausible or realistic, then maybe if it diverges from reality beyond some
kind of a measurable threshold then it is understood to be irony.

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thewarrior
Is AdBlock buying ads to advertise AdBlock ironic [1] ?

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/24/web-ad-killer-
adblo...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/24/web-ad-killer-adblock-
launches-crowdfunding-initiative-to-finance-an-internet-ad-
campaign/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+hnycombinator+\(HN+-+hnycombinator\))

~~~
aestra
Yes.

------
roryokane
Here are writings from some other sources about the meaning of irony. Though
some of them disagree with each other.

“If I were in charge of the networks” – comedian George Carlin’s opinion:
[http://www.sense.net/~blaine/funstuff/carlin.html](http://www.sense.net/~blaine/funstuff/carlin.html)

TVTropes:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony).
It lists seven types of irony: socratic, verbal, dramatic, tragic,
situational, cosmic, and historical.

Everything2: “ironic”
[http://everything2.com/title/ironic](http://everything2.com/title/ironic) and
“irony”
[http://everything2.com/title/irony](http://everything2.com/title/irony)

------
ajarmst
I've always liked a quote from the otherwise forgettable movie "Reality
Bites":

Lelaina: Can you define "irony"? Troy Dyer: It's when the actual meaning is
the complete opposite from the literal meaning.

~~~
elou
Irony is situational - it doesn't have to do with meaning unless the confusing
of that meaning resulted in some coincidental action directly related to that
meaning...

For example, the character "Annyong" in Arrested Development is always saying
"Annyong" (meaning, "hello") when another character says hello to him.
Everyone else thinks he is just repeating his name, but he seems oblivious to
this confusion. The irony is that his real name is "Hel-loh", but he does not
seem to get the connection either. The misunderstanding of his name and its
meaning causes an ironic comedy of errors. Arrested Development is full of
these, as are most situational comedies.

------
byoung2
Isn't it actually ironic that a company would offer Thanksgiving lunch on a
day when most people would not be in the mood to eat it (having eaten their
fill the day before)?

 _3: a) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and
the normal or expected result; an event or result marked by such incongruity_

~~~
elou
Nope, that's just poor planning on behalf of the company.

But let's say the company's boss refused to let his employees have
Thanksgiving off because he did not want to be alone on Thanksgiving, so he
was going to selfishly make his employees be with him and keep him company.
However, all of his employees got caught in traffic --> behind a Thanksgiving
parade --> that his company was sponsoring --> (with the theme, "home for the
holidays") --> and he ended up alone at the office anyway...that would be
ironic. It's situational.

~~~
byoung2
I think it is ironic, according to the definition. Expected result is that
when you order lunch, it should be a treat, something out of the ordinary.
Actual result, everyone already had the same menu the day before, and probably
brought it as leftover s, so it is not special anymore.

------
Tycho
It strikes me as highly ironic that the results of the quoted votes on the
irony judging site were mostly wrong.

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artichokeheart
>What is irony?

The debate that arises from a given definition thereof

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icedog
Why is this on HN?

~~~
fmax30
Because, "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That
includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a
sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual
curiosity." quoted from [1].

[1]
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

p.s. It feels like a very interesting problem to detect irony.

