Electric Josh

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Irony
Dave Eggers first pointed out to me that the word irony is pretty much universally misused. Leave it to the Brits to belabor the point. From the American, buried in an appendix to the second printing of his first book (which I recommend), comes a blurb, printed in extremely small type, called Irony and its Malcontents that begins:

This section should be skipped over by most, for it is annoying and pedantic, and directed to a very few. ... I have that i-word here only to make clear what was clear to, by my estimations, about 99.9% of original hardcover readers of this book: that there is almost no irony, whatsoever, within its covers. But to hear a few people tell it, this entire book, or most of it, was/is ironic. Well. Well. Ahem. Well. Let's define irony as the dictionary does: the use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. (There are lesser definitions, but they all serve this main one.) Now, where, keeping that definition in mind, do we find that herein? We do find some things that might have confused the reader prone to presuming this irony, so let's address them one at a time: 1. When someone kids around, it does not necessarily mean he or she is being ironic. That is, when one tells a joke, in an context, in can mean, simply, that a joke is being told. Jokes, thus, do not have to be ironic to be jokes. Further, satire is not inherently ironic. Nor is parody. Or any kind of comedy. Irony is a very specific and not all that interesting thing, and to use the word/concept to blanket half of all contemporary cultural production---which some aged arbiters seem to be doing (particularly with regard to work made by those under a certain age)---is akin to the too-common citing of "the Midwest" as the regional impediment to all national social progress (when we all know the "Midwest" is ten miles outside of any city). In other words, irony should be considered a very particular and recognizable thing, as defined above, and thus, to refer to everything odd, coincidental, eerie, absurd or strangely funny as ironic is, frankly, an abomination upon the Lord. [Re that last clause: not irony, but a simple, wholesome, American-born exaggeration]. To illustrate the many more things that are not ironic but are often referred to as such, let's look at some sample sentences, starring a wee wayward pup known as Benji, and see if we can illuminate some distinctions.

Sample: Benji was run over by a bus. Isn't that ironic?

No: That is not ironic. That is unfortunate, but it is not ironic.

Sample: It was a bright and sunny day when Benji was run over by a bus. Ironic, no?

Again, no: That is not irony. It is an instance of dissonance between weather and tragedy.

Sample: It is ironic that Benji was on his way to the vet when he was run over by a bus.

Still: That is not irony. That is a coincidence that might be called eerie.

Sample: It is ironic hta Benji was run over on the same day he misused the word ironic.

But see: This is, again, a coincidence. It is wonderfully appropriate that he was run over on this day, deserving as he was of punishment, but it is not ironic.

Sample: Is it not ironic that on the side of the bus that ran over Benji was an advertisement for "The Late Show with David Letterman," a show which many consider often ironic?

Oh, oh: No, no.

From the Brit:

Most pressingly, though, there are a number of misconceptions about irony that are peculiar to recent times. The first is that September 11 spelled the end of irony. The second is that the end of irony would be the one good thing to come out of September 11. The third is that irony characterises our age to a greater degree than it has done any other. The fourth is that Americans can't do irony, and we can. The fifth is that the Germans can't do irony, either (and we still can). The sixth is that irony and cynicism are interchangeable. The seventh is that it's a mistake to attempt irony in emails and text messages, even while irony characterises our age, and so do emails. And the eighth is that "post-ironic" is an acceptable term - it is very modish to use this, as if to suggest one of three things: i) that irony has ended; ii) that postmodernism and irony are interchangeable, and can be conflated into one handy word; or iii) that we are more ironic than we used to be, and therefore need to add a prefix suggesting even greater ironic distance than irony on its own can supply. None of these things is true.