Consider the irony, then consider source
Today, we’re going to have a short lesson in irony, followed by a pop quiz.
Boy, does that sound like fun!
(The above sentence contains irony, a “humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning is the direct opposite of the usual sense.”)
So when I say this will be “fun,” I actually mean “boring.”
(Now, that sentence illustrates one of the dangers of irony, which is that it encourages you to sound sarcastic, cynical, smart-aleck, or all three at once.)
Yet we live in the Age of Irony, and we need to know what irony really means if we don’t want to get in trouble like Alanis Morissette did 10 years ago for her song “Ironic.” The first verse of that song went like this:
“An old man turned ninety-eight,
He won the lottery and died the next day,
It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay,
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late,
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”
No, I don’t think. An old man croaking after winning the lottery may be rotten timing, but pretty much what you’d expect out of an overexcited 98-year-old. A black fly in your chardonnay is merely unpleasant. A death row pardon two minutes late is a typical example of bureaucratic foot-dragging. But none is ironic.
They are not ironic even in the broad sense of dramatic irony, which is: “A combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what’s expected or appropriate.”
The classic example of dramatic irony: a firehouse burning down. In other words, if a 98-year-old man won the lottery, married a starlet and lived another 20 years, THAT would be ironic, especially to his long-suffering heirs.
So, class, here is a short quiz to test your irony skills. Some of the following circumstances are actually ironic, and some are not. See if you can figure out which is which:
“You are driving down the street and realize you do not have your safety belt fastened. You start wrestling with it and searching for the buckle. You smash into the car in front of you.
“You are planning an outdoor wedding and rent a huge canopy in case of rain. The weather turns out to be perfect, but the canopy collapses and ruins your wedding.
“You have just purchased fancy new “trekking poles” which are designed to increase stability while hiking. While using them for the first time, you get the poles tangled up in your legs and break a femur.
“You buy a complete set of new tires because you don’t want a blowout on your Alaska Highway trip. You crash at Milepost Two because the tire shop guys forgot to tighten the lug nuts.
“You stay up all night cramming for your political science test. Then you fall asleep during the test and flunk.
“You take up snowboarding at age 75 because you think it will make you look young and hip. Then you crash and break your hip.
“You wear your only suit and tie to a job interview because you think it makes you seem serious and professional. You fail to get the job because the interviewer thinks you seem “stuffy.”
“You dream all of your life of retiring to Sun City and going golfing every day. So you buy the condo and the golf cart and, two weeks later, you realize that you really hate that stupid game.
“You have been planning your outdoor wedding for months. When the big day arrives, a big rainstorm comes and ruins everything.
“ You are driving down the street and a song you hate comes on the radio. While you are fiddling with the dial, you crash into the car in front of you.
And the answer is: All of the above examples are ironic except for the last two.
If you crash as a result of attempting to use your safety belts, that’s ironic. If you crash because you are messing with your radio, that’s just plain dumb. If your wedding is ruined because of an item intended to forestall ruin, that’s ironic. If your wedding is ruined because the weather was lousy, that’s reality, not irony.
Of course, I may have this irony thing all messed up. As Alanis Morissette or any English teacher or will tell you, it’s complicated.
Yet I do know one thing for sure. If I wrote an entire column purporting to explain irony and got it entirely wrong, that my friends, would be ironic. So I’m covered either way.