Stuart wrote:

If he had overcome his fear of flying and finally decided hey this is stupid I'm going to fly as there's really nothing to worry about, then crashed, that would be ironic.

But that's exactly what I'm assuming happened, otherwise - as you say - it wouldn't be ironic, and since the song is supposedly about ironic events then I think its a fairly decent assumption.
It's pretty hard to describe a situation perfectly in four short lines of verse, so I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt ;)

In general I agree completely with your definition of irony - I just don't really agree with Binky's original assertion that there were _no_ examples of irony in the song.

They might not be great examples but there are some.

Maybe this might have to be an agree to disagree thing?

anyway - on something else you said earlier -

It's a valid argument to say that our language is a living one and as such is always open to adjustments and re-alignments of meaning. To misuse a word until it becomes common practice (see alternate/alternative) doesn't strike me as the best use of that opportunity for redefinition. Most of all when there are already perfectly good words to describe what it is being changed into.

The difficulty with this is that each generation is brought up with an understanding of what words mean, and each generation will have people that are rather free with their usage of words, and people who are concerned about using the right word.  But what exactly are the right definitions?  Do we go back to the original germanic / romance / indian  / whatever root word that the english one evolved from and assert that that is the one true definiton?  Or do we base the definition on its first usage as a standalone English word.  Or do we base the definiton on the one that was accepted when we learnt it?  I suspect most people do the latter - even for words that have significantly changed meaning since their entry into the language.

Even using a dictionary definition doesn't really help, as depending on which dictionary and how old it is there may be differences.  Mr Johnson himself when he set out to create his dictionary was only attempting to describe, not prescribe usage.

Its probably a problem with no real solution.
I guess the only thing to do, is attempt to discourage what we feel are incorrect usages of words wherever we can, and try to be content in the knowledge that those who to us blantantly misuse some words will sooner or later find themselves on the other side of things, berating a new wave of people misusing different words ;)

hmmm....I was going to say something about it only being matter of time before we start to see words like "leverage" in dictionaries with a v next to them...but then I looked at dictionary.com and it already has a verb definition for it.
Now I'm depressed, I guess I'll have to find a different online dictionary to use from now on...

mabinogi wrote:

hmmm....I was going to say something about it only being matter of time before we start to see words like "leverage" in dictionaries with a v next to them...but then I looked at dictionary.com and it already has a verb definition for it.
Now I'm depressed, I guess I'll have to find a different online dictionary to use from now on...

In English, almost any noun can be verbed. In this, dictionaries really have no choice but to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I incline to the view that calling words "nouns" and "verbs" isn't how English works. Nouns and verbs are roles in phrase construction, with the roles able to be filled by any appropriate piece of vocabulary. This contrasts with Latin (still taken by elderly grammarians as the way a language should work) where you cannot verb nouns, because you have no idea how to conjugate them, which is necessary to use a word as a verb in Latin.

John Homes.

John Homes wrote:

In English, almost any noun can be verbed. In this, dictionaries really have no choice but to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I incline to the view that calling words "nouns" and "verbs" isn't how English works. Nouns and verbs are roles in phrase construction, with the roles able to be filled by any appropriate piece of vocabulary. This contrasts with Latin (still taken by elderly grammarians as the way a language should work) where you cannot verb nouns, because you have no idea how to conjugate them, which is necessary to use a word as a verb in Latin.

John Homes.

ahhh...that makes a lot of sense, and it explains why it is that it's so easy to do things like that and still be perfectly understandable.
It also sounds like the same sort of thing as with the suprious "never split infinitives" rule.

It's funny how English managed to exist for hundreds of years without much relation to Latin at all before people started deciding that they needed to try to cram it into the mold of a dead language.

It'd be interesting to see who had done the most damage to the language over the years - the ignorant masses that merely use it to communicate, or the various "Educated" folk with a Latin fetish ;)

I've always liked this example-based definition:

A friend of mine wanted to get some verse from the Bible tattooed on her lower back (she's a bit of a devout Christian).  I suggested she get Leviticus 19:28.

Now that would have been amusing.  *whistles innocently*

Ender

[ February 16, 2005: Message edited by: wiggin ]

when accents come into play correct pronounciation becomes a bone of contention.  Some brits claim that the "Queen's English" is the yardstick by which all should be measured; up until recently that is all you would hear on the BBC.

I still suggest that those of us further north were invaded less recently and as such their accents are newfangled hybrids and should be discounted.

So long as you don't pronounce irony like iron with an objectionable timorous beastie on the end you'll be laughing (that's laffing not laarfing).

Goodness Gracious Me, now that's post-ironic!

@jaded. I take it that person b knows that person c was responsible for the doctored e-mail. If so, there's a certain amount of irony there. If not, not.

John Homes.

temporarily very dead lian wrote:

I love observing language change. And since it's not in my native tongue, I don't even get upset about it. (I'm awfully picky about correct usage in German!)

Oh the hypocricy ;)

I agree with you on the American English conservatism, most American films I watch are full of blue language!

temporarily very dead lian wrote:

My guess: Only if person c really doesn't like person b and would have liked to avoid working with/under them. To me it looks as if person c was rather aiming at making fun if person a, or do I just not get it?

no, person c was out to get person a in trouble.  and person c isn't particularly fond of person b; no one is.  *shrug*  so i guess it works.

granted, being an un(der)educated american, i can just go ahead and use it however i see (un)fit, right?  ;)

I'm not sure if that qualifies.

Person c could reasonably expect that they would get in trouble for writing said e-mail, and thus s/he's transfer is not ironic.  The fact the transfer was to b's department, however, might make it a bit more ironic....

*shrug* go ahead and use it.

Oh we've been saying it long before that, and we knew Australians couldn't sing before Russel Crowe grunted on stage (yes I know he's Kiwi).

Americans, Canadians, what's the fuss, all the same to us.

;p

damned goddamned spelling!

[ March 09, 2005: Message edited by: Stuart ]

Stuart wrote:

Oh we've been saying it long before that, and we knew Australians couldn't sing before Russel Crowe grunted on stage (yes I know he's Kiwi).
[/b]

However, that's the _only_ time Australians seem to remember that ;)

Jack Black is one of my favorite people that I've never met.

I would happily go see a Tenacious D show, whereas you couldn't get me to see Grunts, Dogstar, or the Bacon Brothers at gunpoint.

Back to some earlier points:

When England and the colonies (us) began to separate culturally -- long before the political separation -- the language was unfixed.  (This was before Johnson's and other dictionaries began to nail down spellings, meanings, etc.)  So as things became standardized America chose one way to end those words and then made it a rule -- "or" -- and England chose another -- "our".

As far as that other mineral and its name, I will reprint a brief section of Bill Bryson's "A Brief History of Everything":

"The confusion over the aluminum/aluminium spelling arose because of some characteristic indecisiveness on Davy's (British scientist Humphrey Davy, the discoverer's) part.  When he first isolated the element in 1808 he called it "alumium".  For some reason he thought better of that and changed it to "aluminum" four years later.  Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked "aluminum", pointing out that it disrupted the "-ium" pattern established by sodium, calcium, and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable."