Dragaera

God's rocks (was: Re: Good books generally)

Tue Feb 25 08:02:34 PST 2003

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 Gaertk at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 2/25/2003 2:02:03 AM Eastern Standard
> Time, rone at ennui.org (circadian rhyme) writes:
>
> > Philip Hart writes:
> >> Dude, irony alert.
> >
> > To be fair, this is one of the few times i wasn't being
> > ironic.  
>
> It is only fitting that so many people (including Vlad)
> misuse the word "irony".  See also the word that is always
> spelled "wrong".


I would say it's ironic that prescriptivists say that the way a large
majority of people use the word "irony" is wrong, but I'm not a
descriptivist.

It's not clear to me what Rone was being - I didn't think he was ignorant
of the quote, though, hence the irony of Mark's earnest instruction.
If Rone was playing ignorant to make a point, his statement comes under
the definition of Socratic irony.  (Incidentally I think it's ironic or
"ironic" that Socrates attacked the sophists but relied on sophistic,
straw-man arguments to make his case.  Anyway that's how it seemed to me
back when I tried to read the "Dialogues".)