To act as if I know the difference between irony and coincidence

[Timri]

When I don't really?
I kind of get it, then I get confused.
There can be an overlap, can't there?
Is it all down to expectation? So how can you know if something is truly ironic without actually being in someones head, thereby knowing exactly what their intentions are, rather than just going by what you assume their intentions/expectations are?
Am I even making sense?

It's rain on your wedding day - in the Mojave desert. It's a thousand spoons when all you wanted was a knife (and have spent the last week bending knifes into spoon shapes).

Does irony essentially lie in the eye of the beholder?

Yes! That post, you had it... you see no irony as you don't have an expectation of a farmer liking his produce, AN Other who does have that expectation would see it as ironic.

This thread is amazing,

It has it all!
It's educational,
It has a sound track (isn't ironic, don't ya think)
I'm lying in bed with tears of laughter rolling down my face at death row hardon...
That probably would be ironic if the death row chap hadn't got it up in years then boom sat there with a massive death row hardon as in that situation I think most men would get stage fright not a rock solid boner...

I'm never going to be able to listen to that song now without hearing that in my head.

Ok, so if two people have different perceptions of one event or situation, can it be ironic for one person and not for the other?

Of course! Just like someone finds something funny that someone else does not, someone could find something ironic and you not find it ironic.

If you don't find it ironic, it's simply just an observation, it does not make it a coincidence.

In the chili farmer example, as you can see from people's responses, they DO find it ironic because they DO expect him to like chili. You do not expect him to like chili simply because he farms it, therefore, to you, it's simply information about the chili farmer and it does not make it a coincidence.

Does that help?

Thank you for this thread 😊

That fowler definition is spot on. When he says audience he just means listener or reader, not theatre audience.

It's about a double layer of meaning, one of which is in plain sight, and the other is concealed but which pokes fun at the obvious meaning.
A lot of these things being discussed are just luck or coincidence or whatever.

So, Jane Austen writes about it being a truth universally acknowledged etc in Pride and Prejudice. On one level you might take that as literally true, and nod wisely in agreement. but on another level you read the sentence and pick up the ironic overstatement in the tone and see that it is not a universal truth and you understand the absurdity in thinking it is, while also seeing that this IS how people behave. ie layers of meaning.

Basically, irony is subtle, it's like a paper cut. You have to be alert and critical to see it. Sarcasm and coincidence are not subtle, they are like a rusty machete. And they don't reveal anything new.

I'll stop now.

Skyadelic
Out of curiosity, could number 3 be construed as ironic too? The expectation of speaking to husband (and his expectation of speaking to wife) doesn't get met because the lines both cross. This actually happens a lot to me!

Irony is where the literal meaning is in opposition to the intended meaning. To my mind it's got nothing to do with coincidences? Or at least it didn't til this thread!

Great thread!

Someone wanted the brilliant Ed Byrne sketch on Alanis? Here it is!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg

Alanis's "updated" version of Ironic:

m.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/alanis-morissette-performs-updated-ironic-with-james-corden-on-the-late-late-show-20151111-gkwr5i.html

I love that Ed Byrne sketch. I met him once (contemporaneous to that sketch), he was lovely.

But if u went into a cutlery draw for a knife and it was full of 10,000 spoons - its ironic. Id expect more than spoons. And like pp said if someone had changed the day of the wedding to a meant to be sunny and it rained, its ironic as you didn't expect it. So maybe her examples just needed further explanation?

Failing that logic, maybe the song's ironic for being called ironic and containing no ironic references.

I thought I knew what it meant until I read this thread.

Now I am confused about something I wasn't originally confused about.

I have no wisdom to impart, everyone has said everything I wanted to say.

But I would like to see this thread in Classics.

Wouldn't it be ironic if this thread ended up in Classics on National Irony Day?

NO I KNOW THAT'S NOT IRONY.

I THINK.

I think it would be ironic if:
You went to the dentist to have some preventative work done to prevent toothache, but in the process the dentist did something to your tooth which caused you to develop toothache.
At least I think so, it's a hard one to get your head round isn't it!

www.theguardian.com/music/video/2015/nov/11/alanis-morissette-updates-lyrics-ironic-late-show-video

I actually honestly can't listen to the Alanis song, it makes me SO SO SO SO SO SO SO

I've got that bloody song as an earworm now