Finally...

January 13, 2007 11:36 PM

Lines from Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic", modified to actually be ironic.
posted by w0mbat (84 comments total)

Chocolate?
posted by IronLizard at 11:40 PM on January 13, 2007

This is the perfect marriage of really bad (but the singer thinks they're really deep) lyrics with really bad (but the writer thinks they're really funny) jokes.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:41 PM on January 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

well, I LLOLed.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:45 PM on January 13, 2007

I smell impending flame attack, but I thought this was really funny. It always bothered me that that song didn't include many actual ironies.

You know what else I hate? Anytime someone says 'literally', they actually mean 'figuratively'. As in "It was literally raining cats and dogs".
posted by serazin at 11:45 PM on January 13, 2007

Ok I don't get it. Here's the OED:

Ironic:
1. A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.

2. fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things. (In F. ironie du sort.)

It seems like some of Morissette's ironies are a bit iffy (e.g. "A traffic jam when you're already late"). But most of 'em seem to fit ok with definition #2. I've never quite understood people's acute annoyance with this rather bland but also mostly harmless song.
posted by washburn at 11:54 PM on January 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

*Dodges the dogs and cats raining down from the sky*

Thank you Ironlizard.
posted by Balisong at 11:55 PM on January 13, 2007

I'll forgive any use of irony if people will just stop saying that something "jives" with something else. Jive music? Jive turkey?
posted by dreamsign at 11:56 PM on January 13, 2007

Ha!
Because those lines in her song weren't really examples of irony! That's so funny!
I remember many, many people making that observation about 10 years ago, when the song was actually on the radio a million times a day and then it seemed like daily, dozens of English teachers and grammer nerds began commenting on the fact that she really wasn't being ironic.
It's really ironic that you post this now, so after-the-fact.

I've been drinking.
posted by chococat at 11:57 PM on January 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

grammar.
posted by chococat at 11:58 PM on January 13, 2007

All of these add another layer of tragedy, but no actual irony.

Challenge: Come up with a scenario that can't be dismissed as "tragic, but not ironic".
posted by cillit bang at 12:09 AM on January 14, 2007

I always just figured the ultimate irony was nothing she was saying was ironic.

Alanis is actually just a postmodern genius. Kinda ironic, huh?
posted by OrangeDrink at 12:10 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

A little too ironic
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 12:22 AM on January 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

Boy, they're really sockin' it to that Spiro Agnew guy again. He must work there or something.
posted by gompa at 12:22 AM on January 14, 2007

You know what else I hate? Anytime someone says 'literally', they actually mean 'figuratively'. As in "It was literally raining cats and dogs".

I'm literally angry with rage.
posted by sparkletone at 12:27 AM on January 14, 2007

Americans, to all accounts, have irony-poor blood.
posted by Malor at 12:36 AM on January 14, 2007

this video was so funny, i literally died laughing.
posted by doplgangr at 12:37 AM on January 14, 2007

Irony died on Sept 11.

I (literally) remember everyone saying so.
posted by rokusan at 12:44 AM on January 14, 2007

I'm not going to wait for the next thread about this song, so: It's like raaaiin on a rainy day!

thank god for youtube - I hadn't seen this since 1997 or so...of course, it was a little funnier back then.
posted by pinespree at 12:50 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Americans, to all accounts, have irony-poor blood.

You haven't paid much attention to our political circus, I see.
posted by IronLizard at 12:55 AM on January 14, 2007

Comedian Ed Byrne should really be given credit for originally cracking this joke in 1998.
posted by Kiell at 12:56 AM on January 14, 2007

This is like when you're kind of standing on the sidelines during a witty exchange and then you go home, you eat dinner, watch a little TV and go to bed and then as you're falling asleep replaying the conversation in your mind you suddenly think of the most awesomely funny thing you could have said, it would have totally nailed the moment, and you try to think of a way you can bring up the conversation tomorrow so you can just whip out this brilliant line but you know deep down you already know it isn't going to happen, the moment has fled.

Yeah. It's kinda like that. But it's on the internet.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:10 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Kiell: thank you very, very much. I saw that Byrne bit in 1998, promptly forgot his name and spent the last nine years wondering who that guy was that did the really funny Alanis routine. Watch it here. Time has not been kind to it, though.
posted by Siberian Mist at 1:40 AM on January 14, 2007

The true irony here, George_Spiggot, is that the French - a people not known for using a simple phrase when a paragraph will do just as well - manage to sum up your whole first paragraph in just 3 words :

L'esprit de l'escalier.

Even more so, the Germans - who are likewise not know for using a simple word when a much longer word consisting of at least 15 syllables will do - have a single, shorter word :

Treppenwitz.

Neither of those are actually ironic, admittedly - but we're discussing Alanis Morisette here.

(And my sister literally boils at the word "ironical". Comes in handy when making a cup of tea :-)
posted by Pinback at 2:09 AM on January 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

Ironical? I'll have to use that. Most addicting.
posted by dreamsign at 2:22 AM on January 14, 2007

Hey, nice little language lesson there, Pinback! Thanks!

Otherwise, concerning this:

Americans, to all accounts, have irony-poor blood.

Allright, Malor, them's fightin' words! America, remember, is a big country, and within its borders you'll find places (like New York City) where irony flows through the bloodstreams of the people like raw sewage flows through the Ganges!

At least, it used to. I've been gone for a long time. Maybe even New Yorkers have gone all earnest and sincere...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:35 AM on January 14, 2007

Most of the lines on that site aren't denotatively ironic in the same way that the originals weren't. Oh well, fun to be snobby I guess. /descriptivist
posted by puddnhead at 2:37 AM on January 14, 2007

Dave Eggers does a pretty good taxonomy of some non-ironic things in Irony And Its Malcontents, in the addenda to A Heartbreaking Work.

I don't actually know what does constitute ironic, these days, except maybe dramatic irony - that I have a fair grip on. I'll stick to sarcasm, I think. Maybe it's the lowest form of wit, but no-one gets their knickers in a bunch about it.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:52 AM on January 14, 2007

Situational irony is dead.
posted by Olli at 3:03 AM on January 14, 2007

Americans, to all accounts, have irony-poor blood.

Alanis is Canadian.
posted by norm at 3:04 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

What is truly ironic here is the malware popup that appears three times on that page offering to scan your computer for malware.
posted by randomination at 3:28 AM on January 14, 2007

What is truly ironic here is the malware popup that appears three times on that page offering to scan your computer for malware.

That is indeed ironic, but more than that, very annoying and irritating. Much like Alanis Morissette.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:31 AM on January 14, 2007

flapjax at midnite: the way I've heard foreigners explain it to me is that Americans almost never get irony; it's just not something we do. And I find, as I read the redone Alanis song, that I still have a bit of trouble with it. It's just... not a narrative device we use anymore. We've allowed 'unfortunate circumstance' to replace true irony in our lexicon. Irony takes actual thought, which I suspect is why it's not used here much. :-)

Myself, I can recognize it when I see it now, but I'd have to deliberately set out to construct an ironic situation, rather than just doing it without thinking. "OK! I'm going to use... irony now!" Thus, I'm sure any attempts would be very clumsy. :)

I've never lived in NY, so perhaps that culture is different... or, perhaps, you're not fully grasping irony yourself?

I'm trying to define it here and I'm STILL having trouble. Perhaps "an undesirable occurrence caused by A) attempting to avoid that outcome or one very similar; or B) trying to cause the opposite thing to take place."

Possible examples: being shot is unfortunate. Being shot at a gun show is still just unfortunate. If you're the owner of Smith and Wesson and are shot at a gun show, that's a touch ironic. If you're shot during the demo of your new, expensive gun that's "safer" than normal ones, that's irony.

The sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy. Claiming it was unsinkable was hubris. It would only become irony if the captain did something stupid because he believed his ship was unsinkable.

Corrections welcome. I'm not sure those are good examples.
posted by Malor at 3:33 AM on January 14, 2007

(sigh, I should have edited more. The sinking could be ironic. The claims of unsinkability are just hubris no matter what.)
posted by Malor at 3:42 AM on January 14, 2007

I found my own International Gold Standard Of Irony when browsing the Guinness book of records as a kid.

It's reprinted here.

To have to deal with the societal hardships of puberty and young adulthood as an unusually short person, probably mocked and bullied by many of your peers, only to - yes! finally start growing in your twenties, and then to be left bedridden in the prime of your life by excessive tallness...it fits definition 2 of the OED more perfectly than anything else I've heard.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:47 AM on January 14, 2007

"I'll literally break your shit off" - Hitch
posted by liquorice at 3:58 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

What, no mention of NTK's take on the matter?

In other "stuff you might have missed while we were on holiday": it still pains us to see THE GUARDIAN (and subsequent Slashdot discussion) perpetuating the popular myth - and mainstay of Ed Byrne's standup act - that Alanis Morisette's song "Ironic" might "not be ironic at all". The web is packed with critics devising coincidences that are more "ironic" than Alanis' examples ("It's like rain, on your wedding day - if you're marrying a weatherman! And he predicted that it wasn't going to rain!"), but the song actually seems to deal in minor everyday instances of *situational* irony, defined by the same Guardian piece as "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result".

It's "often" amusing, but doesn't have to be: a "black fly in your Chardonnay" therefore runs contrary to the wine's la-di-dah connotations; "rain on your wedding day" flies in the face of Western associations between happiness and sunny weather. There's no doubt that Alanis could have come up with more "ironic" examples if she'd studied genre classics like Oedipus Rex - "It's like killing your father/ when you're trying not to/ It's like marrying your mother/ when that's socially taboo" - but her original scenarios were probably more recognisable to the CD-buying public.

PS Cheers for getting another issue out, Danny.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 4:06 AM on January 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

or possibly Dave
posted by Busy Old Fool at 4:07 AM on January 14, 2007

Ironical? I'll have to use that. Most addicting.

Post-publication of Neal Stephenson's Baroque books, I am phyiscally incapable (literally!) of writing that word with any spelling other than 'ironickal.' Vexing!
posted by sparkletone at 4:09 AM on January 14, 2007

This is like when you're kind of standing on the sidelines during a witty exchange and then you go home, you eat dinner, watch a little TV and go to bed and then as you're falling asleep replaying the conversation in your mind you suddenly think of the most awesomely funny thing you could have said, it would have totally nailed the moment, and you try to think of a way you can bring up the conversation tomorrow so you can just whip out this brilliant line but you know deep down you already know it isn't going to happen, the moment has fled.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:10 AM PST on January 14

"Yeah" Hal9k bites his lower lip and turns away. He looks off in the distance and says, "Ah, what are you gonna do?"
posted by hal9k at 4:33 AM on January 14, 2007

Malor writes: the way I've heard foreigners explain it to me is that Americans almost never get irony

What, just cuz they're foreigners they're some kind of automatic experts on Americans? ;)

Seriously, though, all I meant was that the generalization is too sweeping: saying that Americans, across the board, just don't get irony is, um... a sweeping generalization. But, like I also said, I'm out of touch with the US, I can't feel its pulse anymore: too far away for too long. One thing I can say with dead certainty, however, is that Americans trounce the Japanese in the irony department. There is NO irony in Japan. You can take that to the bank.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:58 AM on January 14, 2007

I found it ironic that the entire, terribly earnest, somewhat récherché and desperately unfunny piece should have been published on a site called CollegeHumor.
posted by kcds at 5:40 AM on January 14, 2007

I do remember Alanis discussing the literal hub-bub about the song lyrics. She basically said "Look I was 17 when I wrote this and not much older when it became a hit, so what do you expect from a kid."

Or something like that. It literally makes me spew my intestines out of my nose when people get too nit-picky.
posted by The Deej at 5:49 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

"It's like killing your father/ when you're trying not to/ It's like marrying your mother/ when that's socially taboo" -

I don't know if, by a strict interpretation, that's what's ironic about Oedipus.

What's ironic is that while he's going on about how he's going to solve the murder of the old king, we, the informed Greek audience, know the whole time that it's going turn out to be Oedipus that done 'im in.

So, when the makers of the Titanic went on about it's being unsinkable it wasn't by itself ironic. But, when you read about it now, because you know the ship is going to sink, it's ironic.

But, I think the language needed a term for the kind of stuff that Ms. Morisette is singing about, so it reached over and borrowed it, thank you very much.

Myself I don't have too much of a problem with it.
posted by Trochanter at 5:52 AM on January 14, 2007

Newscasters love to use "ironically" in place of "coincidentally" all the time. But you know what really gets my hackles up? When people say or write "no pun intended" after using a double entendre. That's just gotta stop.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:53 AM on January 14, 2007

and I mean stop. Period.
posted by hal9k at 5:56 AM on January 14, 2007

Has anyone ever heard her sing it live lately? I believe she changed the words whenever she sings it now to fix all of the mistakes. So she made the song fit the title.
posted by andryeevna at 6:01 AM on January 14, 2007

I always thought that the irony was the fact that nothing in the song was ironic, yet the song was called "Ironic". At least, if I had been her press agent, that's what I would have told her to say in interviews.
posted by psmealey at 6:20 AM on January 14, 2007

finally!!!
posted by Bravocharlie at 6:28 AM on January 14, 2007

United Airlines Radio had a feature on Alanis where they played several of her songs and had interviews. The song Ironic was played and the airplane crash lyric was cut out very crudely. I guess United figured they wanted to avoid the ultimate non-irony irony...... flying, listening to the song that is not Ironic, hearing the part where the plane crashes down as your actual plane crashes down.
posted by bustmakeupleave at 6:58 AM on January 14, 2007

Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife... with which to kill your spouse for sleeping with the young soup chef who works at the Au Bon Pain.

Not to be pedantic or anything, but ain't it "sous-chef?"
posted by killdevil at 7:10 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's like a room full of people arguing over what is ironic... but they don't have a clue.

Luckily, the Ed Byrne video made this thread worth it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:27 AM on January 14, 2007

I found it ironic that the entire, terribly earnest, somewhat récherché and desperately unfunny piece should have been published on a site called CollegeHumor.

In that case, don't miss the Hall of Fame:

We just put lacquer thinner on his stomach and then poured it onto his hand. That way, when we lit the stomach on fire and he tried to put it out it would catch on his hand.

I have pictures of the scars it left on his side, he was not a happy camper for the next few weeks. His shirt would stick to the wound and everyday he kept making it worse just by getting dressed. But everything is all good now. He gets good laughs out of the whole thing and has a badass scar he can show off."

Kids today and their wacky hijinks!
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:34 AM on January 14, 2007

Ha! Catching a friend on fire!!! I hardly ever did that!!!

Good times, good times.
posted by The Deej at 7:38 AM on January 14, 2007

baha...killdevil, I wondered the same thing myself but dismissed it as possibly making reference to some guy whose sole responsibility involves a ladle.

flapjax at midnite, ain't it the truth.

the irony potential here is high, though...I can envision a moment in the near future at which we might discover a relationship between a sudden increase in cancer numbers and a prevalence of minus ion-producing activated charcoal in our homes and workplaces.

we're soaking in it.
posted by squasha at 7:40 AM on January 14, 2007

Not to be pedantic or anything, but ain't it "sous-chef?"

That, was the funniest part of the whole page.
posted by AmberV at 7:58 AM on January 14, 2007

Ironical? I'll have to use that. Most addicting.

Post-publication of Neal Stephenson's Baroque books, I am phyiscally incapable (literally!) of writing that word with any spelling other than 'ironickal.' Vexing!

Eh, I was going for equal annoyance with "addicting" instead of addictive, as ironical and ironic, but "ironickal" would indeed be quite vexing.
posted by dreamsign at 8:16 AM on January 14, 2007

Thank you! That song has bugged me for a long time.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:32 AM on January 14, 2007

Irony shmirony. Please... just don't let her play the harmonica!!!
posted by miss lynnster at 9:06 AM on January 14, 2007

I always thought it went "It's like rage on your wedding day".
Now I see what all the controversy was about.
posted by Flashman at 9:09 AM on January 14, 2007

Mandatory reading.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:24 AM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

That was pretty clever. I just feel the need to say that I thought of doing this long ago, when the song was on the radio ("It's like rain on your wedding day, if you're both meteorologists"), but I didn't actually sit down and write them out on the internet, so, darn.

I've always been bothered by the song's conflation of "ironic" with "sucky", but more bothered by people chiming in "Dontcha think?" whenever anyone claimed something was ironic.
posted by Durhey at 10:22 AM on January 14, 2007

goodnewsfortheinsane. Awesome link. Ironically, I can't read it because my eyes literally melted out of my head from reading that un-ironic Alanis Morrissett song 30 times.
posted by serazin at 10:34 AM on January 14, 2007

Though not a definition of "irony," a good way to think about whether a situation/story is ironic or not is whether or not it seems like an impish god -- the kind that likes to make people eat their words -- is pulling the strings. Irony is NOT coincidence, but it has a relationship with coincidence.

If I'm flipping channels and hear the word "bagel" on every channel I pass, that's a coincidence. When a coincidence happens, it feels like (normally random, meaningless) events have been rigged or fixed. But in the bagel example, we'd have to say, "Okay, but what's the point of bagels? If there's a god behind it, he must move in mysterious ways."

On the other hand, the story of the Titanic is ironic because it seems like some god was listening to the people who called the ship unsinkable and thinking, "You know what would be fun? To sink the ship!"

If you get cancer and die, that's not ironic, even if it feels lik God had it in for you, because there's no element of someone making you eat your own words.
posted by grumblebee at 10:47 AM on January 14, 2007

I've finally come to terms with this. I figure if Irony were to wake from the dead, she would be amused to find her corpse used in such perverse ways.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:48 AM on January 14, 2007

Isn't paralipsis a form of irony too?
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 11:41 AM on January 14, 2007

Hey, that guy and I drink at the same parties. He's funnier than this, usually.
posted by StopMakingSense at 12:10 PM on January 14, 2007

Morissette's usage of "ironic" isn't so bad. For truly bad usage of "ironic", one has to listen to the master of the art form, baseball play-by-play man Michael Kay.

The man is in love with the word, but has no idea what it means.

Sometimes I think that he thinks it means "coincidental" - as in "The starting pitcher has given up three hits so far through four innings; the ironic thing is that so has the opposing starting pitcher."

But then, every so often, he throws in something literally (by which I mean "figuratively") from left field. Something like "Vlad Guerrero steps up to the plate. The ironic thing is that he's one for two with a walk so far today."
posted by Flunkie at 12:15 PM on January 14, 2007

Also, no internet discussion about irony can be considered complete without mentioning retirony.
posted by Siberian Mist at 12:32 PM on January 14, 2007

Americans, to all accounts, have irony-poor blood.

Alanis is Canadian.
posted by delmoi at 12:48 PM on January 14, 2007

People conflate the special case of "tragic irony" with "irony". Film at 11.
posted by LordSludge at 1:03 PM on January 14, 2007

I think the post is funnier than the link.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:53 PM on January 14, 2007

But, I think the language needed a term for the kind of stuff that Ms. Morisette is singing about, so it reached over and borrowed it, thank you very much.

No, obviously quite the opposite, which is what makes this song so enraging. If this were just a case of someone mildly misusing an English-Lit term, we wouldn't care. But Alanis didn't write out a bunch of who-gives-a-shit scenarios and then ask, "What word best describes these? Irony? It's close enough to work." No. She clearly fell in love with the word when she was learning to be a songwriter, wrote the most insipid pre-"My Humps" song of the last fifty years, and then recorded it once she should have known better in a room full of producers who should've all known better as well.

And then it became a huge hit, and everyone with enough smarts to think, "Yeah, I like the word 'cursory,' but I'm not going to write a fucking song about it,": got enraged, particularly because the word was so misused. It's just awful, sophomoric songwriting, from someone who is otherwise decent. I did a lot of awful, sophomoric songwriting in my teens as well, but later on I saw it for what it was and scrapped it. She kept it up.

10 years ago, back when this was still current, I was at the Hollywood Bowl for a concert, and the song came up in conversation. My friend Kevin looked up at a giant lit-up cross on a hill in the background and said, "Imagine that an earthquake hits, and that cross tumbles to the ground and flattens a church. A house of God crushed by a symbol of God because of an act of God. That's ironic."

That's my gold standard now. Flies in my wine, not so much.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:58 PM on January 14, 2007

And then it became a huge hit, and everyone with enough smarts to think, "Yeah, I like the word 'cursory,' but I'm not going to write a fucking song about it,": got enraged, particularly because the word was so misused.

Either you have serious issues, or else you yourself are "misusing" either or both of the words "everyone" and "enraged".

It's not so bad. Calm down. You'll be happier.
posted by Flunkie at 3:08 PM on January 14, 2007

Alanis is Canadian.

Nope she converted to American

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2005/02/17/morissetteUScitizen050217.html

Looking at the link - I guess she's both, but you can have her.
posted by Deep Dish at 3:14 PM on January 14, 2007

I'm calm, and you're right that I exaggerated, but this song obviously raised an irrational amount of ire in people, and I was just trying to explain why. I bought the album back in the day, before "Ironic" was a single, and while I liked most of the songs, that one just made me cringe, long before I'd given any consideration to the actual literary content of the lyrics. It's because the song isn't about anything at all. It's just her talking about "ironic" things, because she likes the word.

As an addendum, there's nothing ironic about hipster culture. It's a mix of nostalgia and a self-conscious attempt to be cool. In fact, the "impish god" description above is perfect, because irony is a trait infinitely better applied to storytelling than real life. In "The Royal Tenenbaums," when Royal proves his love to Etheline by divorcing her, that's ironic, but if we were actually there, we'd either understand the circumstances or not care. Real life isn't ironic, because we're in the midst of it. Storytelling allows us the ability to know all, and thus irony - which must be appreciated from a distance - can be achieved.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:19 PM on January 14, 2007

Calling 1996. Some jokes appear to have escaped from you through some kind of time vortex. Please collect these jokes. They do not belong in this decade.
posted by seanyboy at 3:22 PM on January 14, 2007

"Dude, it was so funny I literally shit my pants!"
"Well, what did you do?"
"What do you mean, dude? I was laughing..."
"I mean, what did you do with your shitty pants?"
"No, dude, I didn't REALLY shit my pants, I LITERALLY shit my pants!"
-David Cross
posted by Dr-Baa at 5:27 PM on January 14, 2007

The song itself is not without merit. Beyond this, it has introduced in the pop cultural lexicon the exclamation: "it's like RAAAINN on your wedding day," to be used when you identify a situation that someone else falsely idenitifes as "ironic".
posted by psmealey at 5:38 AM on January 15, 2007

Challenge: Come up with a scenario that can't be dismissed as "tragic, but not ironic."

The tumbling-cross-crushing-a-church-in-an-earthquake one is pretty good, but what I flashed on was O. Henry's famous story "The Gift of the Magi."
posted by pax digita at 12:58 PM on January 15, 2007

It's Like Raaay-ee-aaaayn, On Your Wedding Day
posted by blag at 1:59 PM on January 15, 2007

Huh. Who would have thought, it figgers.
posted by psmealey at 3:23 PM on January 15, 2007

Little known fact: Alanis' "You Oughta Know" was not actually about loquacious. However, Sarah McLaughlan was indeed referring to him with the words, "beautiful, fucked-up man".

Still holding out for an Alanis-Moranis celebrity wedding.
posted by Eideteker at 3:47 PM on January 15, 2007

a good way to think about whether a situation/story is ironic or not is whether or not it seems like an impish god -- the kind that likes to make people eat their words -- is pulling the strings

Which is why Spider Robinson coined the phrase "God is an iron." (Iron, in his pun-infested mind, meaning one who commits irony.)
posted by kindall at 6:57 PM on January 15, 2007

Irony died on Sept 11.

September 11, 1994, to be exact.

Ironically, something else bad happened seven years later on the same date.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:09 PM on January 15, 2007