“Ironical” - RebelRabble’s word of the day
The English language is inadequate.
Alanis Morrissette often gets bagged for the song “Ironic”, because a lot of situations she describes in it are not actually ironic. But see, I don’t really think it’s her fault… I mean what do you call it when you have 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife? Or meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife?
These things aren’t ‘ironic’, but there’s also something more to them than just being ‘unfortunate circumstances’.
I think stuff like that should be called ‘Ironical’. Eg: “OMG it’s so ironical that she got a death row pardon 2 mins too late!”
Discussion on “Irony” except from Wikipedia:
Henry Watson Fowler, in The King’s English, says “any definition of irony…must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same.”
The word ‘ironic’ is sometimes used as a synonym for incongruous or coincidental in situations where there is no “double audience,” and no contradiction between the ostensible and true meaning of the words. An example of such usage:
“Ironically, Sir Arthur Sullivan is remembered for the comic operas he found embarrassing, rather than the serious works he hoped would be his legacy.”
