See http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001941.html for a recent discussion. >From my comment: In Modern English Usage, Fowler gives a fairly simple definition: Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that "more" and of the outsider's incomprehension. He goes on to list three main categories of irony: Socratic irony (Socrates pretends ignorance to manipulate the dogmatists and to amuse his followers), dramatic irony (the point being that Sophocles's audience knew the story already), and irony of fate (the idea being that most people ignorantly expect an orderly or a cooperative natural world but we the clued in don't). He says it's important not to apply "irony of fate" to every "trivial oddity" - which rules out the wedding day example in my book. And Richard's situation isn't ironic in my view - if we knew that a horse would cause the kingdom's downfall it might be, but as is it's just tragic. Anyway, this article is largely based, but also expands, on Fowler: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Irony A commenter suggested How about: annoying, frustrating, cussed? inconvenient or disastrous? as alternatives. I think Fowler says something very British like "It's a rum thing." On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, J A 'Dusty' Sayers wrote: > I hate to ask a question that I feel may make me look ignorant, but I am > trying to fight my way through a common mis-conception, and to correct > it where possible. > > The problem is the word irony, which I bring to this mailing list > because irony plays such a large role in Vlad's vocabulary. I also > mention it here because I have seen people on this list complain about > how the word is mis-used a great deal in American culture. Heretofore I > did not much care, as I could use the word well enough for my own > satisfaction, but since I have begun teaching high school, I want to be > able to correct my students properly. (I should mention that I don't > teach English, but I do teach some pretty writing-intenseive history > courses, and I try to encourage good language usage among the little > weasels.) > > Could someone, perhaps Dr Mandel, provide a good definition of what > irony in its proper usage? > > Perhaps even more important, could someone please provide some good > words that mean what most people seem to think irony means (i.e. poetic > justice or odd, interesting coincidences)? > > I am sort of embarassed to ask, since I feel like a man with two > master's degrees ought to know this sort of thing by now, but now that I > am, in however small a sense, a public figure, I want to be very correct > in my diction. > > Thanks much! > > J A Dusty Sayers > > >