September 24, 2001

7:24 PM

More tragicomic WTC news.Apparently, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had a pending trademark patent on the official logo for the WTC commercial district. The logo was Published for Opposition, in which third parties could oppose the patent filing. If gone unopposed, the logo would then be granted the patent. ...Note the status date.
posted by Down10 (9 comments total)

They don't call it irony for nothing.
posted by UnReality at 7:58 PM on September 24, 2001

Hrm.

No offence, but that logo kinda sucks, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 8:00 PM on September 24, 2001

(1)I'm not sure that's irony.

(2) I workred on the 53rd Floor of 2 WTC. No offense intended, but the buildings sucked in most ways; terribly inhuman.

(3) I passed by the site today. From Broadway, the charred neo-gothic facade is truly striking. That has to become a monument.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:13 PM on September 24, 2001

posted by quonsar at 8:24 PM on September 24, 2001

take it from an english teacher: in itself, this isn't ironic. it's sad, a little thought-provoking, definitely creepy in light of the date, but not ironic.

sorry, i've been trying to remedy every instance of this after alanis morrisette single-handedly got every student thinking that "having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife" is an example of irony.

;)
posted by ronv at 8:26 PM on September 24, 2001

(I worked there in 1998 for a month--sorry for the omission)
posted by ParisParamus at 8:38 PM on September 24, 2001

Thanks, Ronv. Really appreciated that.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:46 PM on September 24, 2001

Ronv is a prescriptivist. Descriptivists will note that irony's 2nd accepted definition covers "incongruity between what is expected and what occurs", otherwise known as irony of situation. Yes, there are misuses of irony (see usage note at ironic) but this isn't one of them.

The original term was used to describe dramatic irony, which was where the audience knows something that the characters don't -- e.g. that as they successfully drill into the safe, the police are waiting outside the door. By extension this covers situations where a person is overly confident of an end-result and the confidence is dramatically misplaced. This certainly covers the trademark example, albeit not in a very interesting way.
posted by dhartung at 2:30 AM on September 25, 2001

A more entertaining definition of irony.
posted by straight at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2001