Irony: a 5-year FLASHBACK blog!

(Originally posted July 18, 2007)

Okay a big problem in our communities these days is that nobody knows what irony is.  I am kind of a stickler when it comes to the English language and its proper usage, so this has been a pet peeve of mine for some time.

IRONY, by strict definition, is like when something backfires in a humorous way, sort of.

Some things that are NOT irony:

1) COINCIDENCE!

I hate when some fool says something like, "Isn't it ironic that my father died on Father's Day?"  NO, you JERK!  That is just coincidence.  Now maybe you have a lonely old father that you have not called in ten years because you are SUCH a thoughtless jerk, so you decide to finally call him up on Father's Day, and when you do you catch him in the bathtub and he slips and falls while running for the phone and dies from hitting his head on a cement block that he uses as furniture.  That is irony.

2) MISFORTUNE

Rain on your wedding day.  Locking your keys in your car on the day of a big presentation.  "Oh figures, the very first time I hire a prostitute it turns out to be a cop."  We have all had these problems.  They are very annoying things, but they are not ironic.  Hiring a bunch of Indians to perform a rain dance as entertainment at your wedding would be ironic.  If they arrive late because they locked their keys in their car, that would not add any additional irony.  However, if when they were rushing over it started raining naturally and the speeding car skidded on wet leaves and flew off a cliff, that would.  See?  Simple.

So next time you begin to think "Isn't it ironic that..." just err on the side of caution and assume it isn't.  Don't say that things are "ironic," say that things "suck" instead.  "Sucks" is a safe word that you can usually count on.  (Unless it's some rare kind of good irony like if a beer truck flips over because the driver was drunk and free beer winds up all over the neighborhood.)


Click HERE.