further adventures of "ironic"

Tue Jun 8 16:31:31 UTC 2010

> One sense of IRONY is 'a situation in which things do not turn out as
> one of the participants would expect' (dramatic irony). I suppose the
> player did not expect that all of his homers would have been hit
> against the Tigers. The Tigers were probably even more surprised.

Surely this is a very feeble rationale for this sort of statement?
Several years ago I heard one sportscaster say to another "It's ironic that [some slightly amusing trivial coincidence which I have forgotten].  The other replied, no, it's merely a happenstance.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: RonButters <ronbutters at aol.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 8, 2010 10:37 am
Subject: Re: further adventures of "ironic"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> One sense of IRONY is 'a situation in which things do not turn out as
> one of the participants would expect' (dramatic irony). I suppose the
> player did not expect that all of his homers would have been hit
> against the Tigers. The Tigers were probably even more surprised.
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 2010 17:13:38
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] further adventures of "ironic"
>
> It seems to me that "the standard meaning of *ironic*" these days,
> (unless you are in the company of English majors, which god forbid) is
> "marked by a slightly amusing trivial coincidence".  I hear on sports
> broadcasts "He's hit only 3 homeruns this season, and, ironically,
> they have all been against the Tigers."  The drift from that to
> whatever Tocco may have had in mind seems to me to be inevitable.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Rick Barr <rickbarremail at gmail.com>
> Date: Monday, June 7, 2010 3:19 pm
> Subject: Re: further adventures of "ironic"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > It's an odd phrase, to say that closing down the street for the languid
> > parade was very ironic. I agree with George that "strange" is probably
> > what
> > the speaker had in mind. But it's a special kind of strange, nuanced
> > by the
> > standard meaning of *ironic*, involving a disparity between two things
> > (the
> > real and the one that is presented, the intended meaning and the stated
> > one). I think that's what the speaker was aiming for, that it was
> > strange to
> > see such a disparity between the size of the parade and the magnitude
> > of the
> > chaos produced by it. I haven't seen other examples of this sort of
> > "ironic." Might the fact that the man was feeling IRate have prompted
> > the
> > choice of IRonic?
> >
> > -- Rick
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:05 AM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> > > Subject:      further adventures of "ironic"
> > >
> > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > An article in today's NYTimes on street processions in the Williamsburgh
> > > area, honoring patron saints, specifically St. Cono, of Teggiano,
> Italy.
> > >  (section A, p. 16, column 1, for those of us still bound to print-on-paper)
> > >  This area of Williamsburgh was until recently largely inhabited by
> > Italian
> > > Catholics, but it seems now has a considerable number of young
> > residents not
> > > raised to the tradition.
> > > One (Chris Tocco, 26, an actor) is quoted as saying: "It was a tiny
> > parade,
> > > and they shut down Graham Avenue?  There was one float and a horrible
> > > marching band.  It was very ironic."
> > > If Mr. Toco were to be asked to pick a replacement for the word "ironic"
> > > here, he might choose "having the the nature of irony or covert sarcasm;
> > > meaning the opposite of what is expressed"; he might choose "showing
> > a
> > > condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was,
> > or might
> > > naturally be, expected"; he might even choose "being marked by a slightly
> > > amusing trivial coincidence"; but I think he would choose "strange".
> > >
> > > A 27 year old onlooker offered the insight "It's kind of like a
> > vestige of
> > > the old neighborhoods of Brooklyn".  It is like that, indeed, kind
> of.
> > >
> > > (First two defs. adapted from the OED)
> > >
> > > GAT
> > >
> > > George A. Thompson
> > > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> > >
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