Current mood:	jubilant
Current music:	Waltzinblack (The Stranglers)
Entry tags:	definition, irony

Irony

irony¹ n orig the Socratic method of discussion by professing ignorance; conveyance of meaning (generally satirical) by words whose literal meaning is the opposite, esp words of praise used as a criticism or condemnation; a situation or utterance (eg in a tragedy) that has a significance unperceived at the time, or by the persons involved (cf dramatic irony under drama); a condition in which one seems to be mocked by fate or the facts. -- adj ironic or iron'ical. -- adv iron'ically. -- n i'ronist. -- vt and vi i'ronize or -ise. [L ironia, from Gr eironeia dissimulation, from eiron a dissembler]

irony². See under iron.

from the Chambers Dictionary

After years of being plagued by English students (usually these) telling me "that's not irony" (and, admittedly, perhaps I should have bitten the bullet and used "hypocrisy" rather than appealing to a sense of irony) I decided to look the word up, once and for all.  This was partly inspired by another former English student of my acquaintance, who insisted on a specific definition of syllogism as the only definition.  As a brief aside, a syllogism means, primarily, an argument based on a universal statement applied to a particular case, the classic example being:

All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.

It turned out that in modern critical theory, a secondary meaning is more commonly used, which I think I have identified as false syllogism:

God is love; love is blind; Ray Charles is blind; therefore, Ray Charles is God.

Whatever your opinions on the great man's piano playing, this statement proves nothing.  Anyway, I realized that irony was, similarly, unlikely to be restricted to a single meaning, and so cries of "that's not irony!" might turn out to be factually false.

How delighted I am, therefore, to discover that not only the commonly-used sense of irony pertaining to events which appear to mock us -- as in the song by Alanis Morrissette -- but also the sense of irony being like goldy or bronzey -- as in the comment by Baldrick -- is correct.