Saying one thing but meaning the opposite

Dan Goodman dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM
Wed Nov 12 19:23:44 UTC 2008


Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 12:00:07PM -0500, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> When someone says "my good friends" but means the opposite, what is
>> this figure of speech called?
>
> I know you're expecting an exotic Graecism, but I'm pretty
> sure that the usual rhetorical term for this is just "irony".

Might not be exotic, but isn't it originally Greek?




--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com <http://dsgood.livejournal.com/>
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
Mirror Journal http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Mirror 2 http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list