Understanding irony (or how Alanis Morrisette got it so wrong)

Posted on 14 December, 2011 by Frithahookway

“An old man turned ninety-eight. He won the lottery and died the next day”. Not really ironic is it? Unfortunate, yes and rotten timing too, not to mention a rather morbid opening line to the Alanis Morrisette’s song Ironic.

“It’s like rain on your wedding day”. Nope, not ironic either. Rather, just really bad luck.

“A no smoking sign on your cigarette break”. If the sign in question hung in an actual smoker’s lounge , then yes, this would be ironic. But otherwise, no, this is not irony, just annoying.

Really the only thing ironic in Ironic is that none of the situations she describes are, in fact, ironic.

So if Alanis got it all wrong, what then is ironic? 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 is just taken a swig of sleeping potion, which 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. But also kinda cute.

“My pen had been running out of ink but I took it into the exam anyway, and it ran out mid-essay. How ironic!” – No, just an obvious outcome to your pen showing signs of running out of ink and also terrible exam prep.

“This fire-extinguisher shoots out fire balls. How ironic!” Boom. Situational irony to a tee.

So with our newfound knowledge of irony we could perhaps rework a few of Morissette’s lines. Take “it’s a traffic jam when you’re already late”. If we try:

“It’s like a traffic jam when you’re already late to a political summit on road congestion”.

Is it as lyrically catchy? No.

Ironic? Through and through.

Eschewing erudite vernacular (or why it’s better to choose shorter words)

Posted on 2 December, 2011 by hmsteemson

The consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly.

It’s a good title for an excellent study conducted a wee while ago at Princeton uni, on the effects of using more complicated words in your writing. The general gist of the outcome is the simpler your writing, the brainer your reader will think you are.

The study backs up what I’ve suspected for a long time: that overly complicated wording is the nouveau riche of the literary world. Flashing around all that glitzy language makes you look like you’ve got something to prove.

Truth be told, I love a fancy word here and there. I delight in the irony of obfuscate, and thrill when I’m called an erstwhile actor, or affectionately labelled a poltroon. But the sad truth remains that if you’re writing for communication, the simpler the word, the better (unless, of course, you’re writing exclusively for an audience of lexicographers).

Worth noting that the only readers studied were well-educated uni students, but the point, I believe, still holds.

Burnt or burned? The participle conundrum (or how to talk about your toast correctly)

Posted on 1 December, 2011 by rebekahguy

Did you learn about linguistics at school? To be more precise, are you over the age of 27? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes”, then you might know about participles. If you answered “no’” then you probably don’t. If you answered “yes” and then “no”, or vice versa, well… I don’t know. I’d hoped that wouldn’t happen.

The difference between learned and learnt, or burned and burnt, lies within the scope of a tiny but important English variant: the past participle tense. It’s created with the use of participles – your learnts, burnts, spilts and lepts.

If you’re unfamiliar with the use of participles it’s because these days, due to the downfall of the institution which I like to call Speaking Correctly, and because humans have learnt (HA!) that a fewer number of variables is a better number of variables (especially when the people who like those variables are puny and easily physically bested), those words mentioned aren’t seen as holding differing meanings (so don’t believe the first few entries on Google Answers). But they do! Example:

I learned French.

I’ve learnt French.

When you say you learned something, the meaning conveyed is not only that the learning event was in the past, but that it’s probably finished now. The ‘learnt’ meaning is that yes, the learning happened in the past, and its application may still exist today and in the future – maybe you’re still learning it. Probably in that case you’d add another word to the sentence: “I’ve learnt French before”; similarly, “I’ve burnt toast before, and I plan to do it in the future, many times”. Been is a participle of the verb to go, as in “I’ve been to Disneyland before, and I plan to do it in the future, many times” compared with “I went to Disneyland when I was five”.

Surprise Educational Experience: Apparently, the word cookt used to exist: “I’ve cookt for my mother for the last fifteen years, and she still won’t acknowledge my brilliance” (the cooking started in the past and will continue, as will the lack of maternal respect). Sadly, that wee gem isn’t around anymore (although I plan to use it).

There is one definite rule with participles – they need an auxiliary verb. That’s just some lingo you can throw around if you want to seem smart, cos it really just means you need to use have or had before the participle, like in the above examples. Otherwise it won’t make sense. Well, it will make sense to those who don’t care, but to us puny and easily physically bested dorks it’s tantamount to gibberish.

One last thing – learned, burned, leaped, spilled, blessed, and all those other –ed words can be used as present participle qualifiers. Now, that sounds dumb, but really it means that you can add a syllable to the -ed word and make it describe a thing in a very scholarly-sounding way, like this: “Queen’s Brian May is actually a very learn-ed man”, or “Indeed, this French toast has bless-ed us all”, or “Yikes, this stove has burn-ed me”… VERY cool.