People who are inconsistent
Then again...
I don't want to beat a dead horse, but it would have been nice if Alanis Morissette had bothered to include irony in the song "Ironic."
Seriously, would it have been that hard?
posted by misanthropster @ 10:36 PM
6 Comments:
Well, if you're going to be academic about it...
The American Heritage College Dictionary Notes: The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable", in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence "In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York." By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence "Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market", where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.
My question then is: Who the hell is the Usage Panel? - J
You know, if there were any justice in the world, I would be on the usage panel.
Secondly, are we turning into the goddamn French? Usage panels? (more inconsistency on my part, after all my ranting and raving about crappy (mis)usage of well-known words that should be in everybody's basic vocabulary (a future post, I'm sure), and my own incredibly shit grammar (Unlike my husband who is guest ranting on both the Alanis Morrisette posts, and is, in actuality, an English professor at a college. I'm sure there'll be a rant from him about me on here some day...) What was I saying? Oh yeah, the French.
Anyway, are we turning into the French? Is it going to take a 10-year review by a usage panel to accept "biznatch" into common English usage, like the French review that took freaking forever to get "CD" accepted. Is it the French Academy? Is that what I'm thinking of? Somebody help me out here... somebody with either more knowledge than meown ignorant self, or somebody who actually feels like typing some of this crap into their internet browser and proving me to be an idiot. (not that it takes much.)
Dear J,
You make a good point about usage of "ironic" as "coincidental" or "improbable." However, as all the asshole academics pointed out, Morissette's "Ironic" presented situations that were better described as "bummers." For instance, neither a black fly in your chardonnay nor rain on your wedding day are particularly improbable or coincidental. They are, however, annoying.
As are the academics who originally made this argument.
As am I, who just reiterated this argument.
ugh.
Personally, I would argue FOR the word "ironic" to be used in the song for rhythmic reasons.
But that's just because I think "Doesn't it suck when..." or "Don't you hate when..." or any other alternatives don't sound as nice as "Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?"
I mean, it does sound nice. Especially in Alanis' voice.
At the same time, she's not exactly O'Henry...
Okay, you're forcing me to take a contrarian position here...
"Isn't it ironic?"
"Isn't it a bummer?"
Note that they have the same number of syllables, and scan similarly.
Now I really hate myself.
However, we get much closer to assonance with "Isn't it
ironic..." than with "Isn't it a bummer..."
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