The ironic misuse of irony
Warning: I’m doing that thing again where I go full grammar gang.
I was at a lunch today where I ran into someone I’d not seen in years. They made the comment about how ironic it was we’d both ended up at the same venue. While the misuse of the word ‘ironic’ here irritated me, I hadn’t seen this person for so long, so it seemed socially off to focus on their error and suggest what they meant was ‘coincidental’.
However, this isn’t a case of a single offender. Irony is often used incorrectly when it comes to describing something, which makes me think there’s a bit of fuzz around what it really is.
So here’s the go.
There are three types of irony — verbal, dramatic and situational, each quite different from the other.
Verbal irony is when someone says something, but means another — there’s a bit of a confusion between verbal irony and sarcasm, as they cross over a little. For example “I’d rather pull out my own teeth” or “clear as mud” are both example of verbal irony. The irony is only recognisable by our given/stereotypical knowledge of the objects in the sentence, or the context being referred to. It is understood that mud is not clear and pulling teeth is painful, which take these sentences from being literal into the realm of irony.
Dramatic irony is a bit of a weird one. It is primarily used in a narrative where one of the people observing the situation is privy to information that at least one of the other characters is unaware. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we have Romeo thinking Juliet is dead and killing himself when the audience knows she has just taken a swig of sleeping potion. This is dramatic irony. Similarly, in Oedipus the King the reader knows that Oedipus is the murderer he’s looking for; however his conscious self, Creon, and Jocasta do not. Or if you’re after a more modern example, The Truman Show showcases dramatic irony, because everyone apart from Truman knows he’s the main character of a reality show.
Situational irony, the type that is most commonly misused, involves a situation where the actions end up having an effect that is the opposite from what was intended or expected. Often situational irony is confused with coincidence, an obvious chain of events or something just being funny.
“We turned up to work on Friday wearing the same dress! How ironic!” — No, just a coincidence. “My pen had been running out of ink but I took it into the exam anyway, and it ran out mid-essay. How ironic!” — Nope, just terrible exam prep.
“This fire-extinguisher shoots out fire balls. How ironic!” Bingo. Situational irony.
As you were.
(The broad strokes of this post were first written over at www.wordsforbreakfast.co.nz)
