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Bryan Garner, author of “Garner’s Modern American Usage” and a self-described professional stickler, said that the definition of situational irony has often become quite loose because of the subjectivity of what counts as an ironic twist. Suppose she was all dressed up in her white dress and veil, and then on her way back from church a car ran into her and she was killed.” For Buechner’s character, this is ironic “because on the same day that she started out on a new life, her life stopped” - but arguably, it is really just a horrible coincidence. In Frederick Buechner’s 1974 novel, “Love Feast,” for instance, a character is asked to define irony and uses a familiar scenario to do so: “Suppose you had a bride on her wedding day.
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This isn’t all that surprising, since situational irony can be applied much more broadly than rhetorical or Socratic irony. Since then, the incidence of the word’s use have shot up enormously. The OED’s first citation for this type of irony goes back to the 16th century, derived from a Greek term meaning “dissimulation” or “pretended ignorance.” Situational irony (according to the OED: “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations”) doesn’t appear until 1833. The word’s definition has expanded for decades, and like it or not, Morissette’s definitions of “irony” are now mainstream.įor centuries, irony was specifically a rhetorical device: saying one thing while meaning something else, sometimes (as in Socratic irony) in service of making an argument without showing your own hand. But, as is often true with language, history is on the side of the mistake, not the correction.
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According to critics, the lyrics of “Ironic” describe numerous unfortunate occurrences - a rainy wedding day, a death row pardon a few minutes too late - without the dramatic twist necessary for a true irony.