Ironically

[Jonathan Lighter]

I dunno, Alison. I hear sentence-initial "ironically" all the time on live TV, and it rarely seems to draw attention to any real "irony."

Here's another ex., if I may paraphrase. (Have I posted this before?)  One local news reporter is introduced as having "come to us from KRAP in Salt Lake City."  Then he introduces a second reporter by saying, "And joining the Action News Team for the first time tonight is Susie Newsie. Ironically, Susie grew up in Salt Lake City."

Ironic ?  Or just surprisingly coincidental ?  We report, etc.

JL
sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: Ironically
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Here's a paradigm case of "ironically" used to mean "surprisingly" (or
>maybe even "actually"?)with no evident "irony" intended.
>
>Lance Armstrong was being interviewed on _Fox & Friends_ about the coming
>Tour de France and about a new Nike running shoe named after him.
>
>"And what is the meaning of this yellow stripe on the [side of the] shoe?"
>
>"Ironically, there are people who study color and what colors mean to
>people, and the yellow represents [the color of my jersey]."
>
>JL
~~~~~~~~
Probably Armstrong meant to draw attention to the irony of using a yellow
stripe -- symbol of cowardice -- as a feature of a product that was
supposed to benefit from association with his presumably courageous
pursuit of his outstanding achievements.
AM

~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:>



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