Grammar
In Search of Irony
A couple of books I’m reading at the moment have made references to “ironic t-shirts”. This got me to thinking, what exactly is an ironic t-shirt and for that matter, what exactly is irony.
It turns out that there are three main types of irony...
Verbal Irony
This is when you say something while implying something else. For example if there's a massive rainstorm outside and you say “What lovely weather we’re having!”. You are being ironic.
Dramatic Irony
When the readers or viewers are aware of a character’s situation and the characters themselves aren’t this is dramatic irony. In “Romeo and Juliet”, for example, Romeo is distraught because he thinks that Juliet is dead. He then kills himself. We as readers know that Juliet is not in fact dead, so that’s dramatic irony.
Situational Irony
Ah, my favourite type of irony. This is when a situation leads to results that would not normally be expected. Classic example
In my quest for examples of irony I was led to popular culture and this sketch from Blackadder
Apparently Americans “just don’t get irony”. Does this extend to Canadians too? Perhaps. You would think that Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” would be a great place to find some ironic scenarios. You’d be wrong. As Matt Sturge points out in this article most of what she mentions in the song is just bad luck/unfortunate timing:
Anyway, back to those elusive ironic t-shirts. Ordinary t-shirts may turn out to be ironic if worn in the right situation. Take for example these ironic t-shirts to get arrested in. Strictly speaking artistic irony is when an artistic work refers back to earlier art.
My search for ironic t-shirts led me to this design, "Pop Art is Dead". Maybe this is the ultimate in ironic t-shirt design? The t-shirt is ironic in the artistic sense (referring to the pop art style) and situationally ironic (because it’s using pop art imagery while at the same time saying it’s dead). So it seems that not only is pop art still very much alive, but irony is helping to keep it that way.
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Grammar
Rhetorically Speaking 3: Irony
In Search of Irony
A couple of books I’m reading at the moment have made references to “ironic t-shirts”. This got me to thinking, what exactly is an ironic t-shirt and for that matter, what exactly is irony.
It turns out that there are three main types of irony...
Verbal Irony
This is when you say something while implying something else. For example if there's a massive rainstorm outside and you say “What lovely weather we’re having!”. You are being ironic.
Dramatic Irony
When the readers or viewers are aware of a character’s situation and the characters themselves aren’t this is dramatic irony. In “Romeo and Juliet”, for example, Romeo is distraught because he thinks that Juliet is dead. He then kills himself. We as readers know that Juliet is not in fact dead, so that’s dramatic irony.
Situational Irony
Ah, my favourite type of irony. This is when a situation leads to results that would not normally be expected. Classic example
President Reagan was struck by a bullet that bounced off the presidential car. This is ironic because the car was bullet-proof (and probably bomb and missile proof too) and in normal circumstances would protect the president from bullets.Irony in Popular Culture
In my quest for examples of irony I was led to popular culture and this sketch from Blackadder
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?Ok, this was just a simple play on words, but amusing nevertheless.
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
Apparently Americans “just don’t get irony”. Does this extend to Canadians too? Perhaps. You would think that Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” would be a great place to find some ironic scenarios. You’d be wrong. As Matt Sturge points out in this article most of what she mentions in the song is just bad luck/unfortunate timing:
Attempts at describing irony: 11Irish comedian Ed Byrne showed he really knows what irony is all about: "The only ironic thing about that song is it's called 'Ironic' and it's written by a woman who doesn't know what irony is. That's quite ironic."
Successful attempts: 2.5
Anyway, back to those elusive ironic t-shirts. Ordinary t-shirts may turn out to be ironic if worn in the right situation. Take for example these ironic t-shirts to get arrested in. Strictly speaking artistic irony is when an artistic work refers back to earlier art.My search for ironic t-shirts led me to this design, "Pop Art is Dead". Maybe this is the ultimate in ironic t-shirt design? The t-shirt is ironic in the artistic sense (referring to the pop art style) and situationally ironic (because it’s using pop art imagery while at the same time saying it’s dead). So it seems that not only is pop art still very much alive, but irony is helping to keep it that way.
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In informal English, we often use idiomatic expressions with and instead of the infinitive marker to, when linking certain verbs with a following infinitive: Come over here and look at these lovely flowers. I'll just go and get something to...
- A Small Number Of Quantifiers Are A Bit Confusing, Perhaps.
Doing some research for a post I want to do on linking verbs, I came across this sentence: There is a small number of other copular verbs which just happened to be on an English university grammar course website, which is a bit ironic. Now I was pretty...
- Q & A When Do We Use 'whom' Instead Of 'who'.
I'm tempted to say almost never, but I'll try to be a bit more objective. Basic answer - in spoken and informal English, most native speakers use whom very rarely. This is because for most of us whom sounds excessively formal and rather old...
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I recently did a lesson on the language of texting (SMS) - and Internet slang - LOL, BTW etc, and got to thinking about how old the use acronyms and abbreviations is. Acronyms, BTW, are those abbreviations that are said as a word. So the UN is an...