Hey logonauts! Do you have any language-related pet peeves? I know I do, and if annoying me were an Olympic event, the misuse of the two words we'll discuss today would win at least bronze (though I wouldn't be handing out precious metals for irritating me -- that's just silly). Today you're getting a double header in this post, and first we'll be addressing the word "sarcasm."
On average, people popularly refer to any sort of joking speech expressing a sentiment other than the truth as sarcastic. My flatmate calls me a barbarian for putting anything on my crumpets other than butter and jam, and I joke with her about needing the Crazy Cat Lady Starter Kit. But they're just jokes. She just happens to love cats more than the average person, and...well, I'm joking.
Anyway, the point is that such comments aren't sarcasm. Sarcasm mocks or ridicules with the intent to do harm, and the sallies that friends and family make at each other in jest don't qualify. The Oxford English Dictionary defines sarcasm as "a sharp, bitter or cutting expression or remark" or "a bitter jibe or taunt." Telling an overweight person eating a doughnut that he or she is doing a great job on his or her diet would be sarcasm, for instance. It needn't even deviate from the truth; if a co-worker manages to spill his glass of water thrice in one evening despite his brand-new bartending degree, telling him that he couldn't serve a drink in a bathtub would be sarcastic, and would be cruel at that. (But if your co-worker won't stop patting himself on the back for his skill at making cocktails, chances are that you'd be waiting for a good opportunity for some schadenfreude*).
The harshness associated with sarcasm becomes clear if we examine the etymology of the word; it comes from Greek σαρκασμός, or sarkasmós, from σαρκάζειν, or sarkázein, "to tear flesh." The Greek root σαρκ, "sark-," is the same root from which we derive sarcophagus, the name for the typically stone coffins used by the ancients to hold the bodies of the dead. The name, a Greek compound meaning "flesh-eating," comes from the belief that the type of stone typically used to create the coffins consumed the flesh of the bodies within. Remembering that sarcasm comes from a word meaning "flesh" will help you remember that people wield sarcasm not to jest or tease, but to wound.
Nowadays sarcasm is mistakenly applied to examples of verbal irony, or enantiosis, which dictionary.reference.com defines as "the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning." While sarcasm can take the form of irony -- for example, calling someone a genius for saying something obvious -- not all sarcasm is ironic, and not all irony is sarcastic. When it starts raining and you say, "Nice weather we're having," or when you drop a cake on the floor and say, "I meant to do that," you're not being sarcastic because you're not insulting anyone. You're employing verbal irony.
Yet irony itself poses some problems. Dictionary.reference.com's blog, The Hot Word, has suggested that ironic may be "the most abused word in English." An infamous example is Alanis Morissette's 1995 song "Ironic."
Critics and comedians excoriated Morissette for her song's lyrics, prompting parodies ranging from famous comedy roasts** of the song to a version of the lyrics modified to make them truly ironic. And Alanis is not alone in her misuse of the word. There's even a website, IsItIronic.com, to help you determine whether you can classify your particular situation as ironic. (It also sports an entire tab devoted to Alanis Morissette.)
The type of irony Alanis tries to invoke in her song is situational irony, and this is the kind of irony that people tend to define incorrectly. Common mistakes include applying ironic to something merely out of the ordinary, such as a cold day in July, or to something unexpected, such an expensive meal at a five-star restaurant tasting awful. Another example of mistaken irony is the coincidence, such as a chance meeting with a friend at the movie theater who happens to be seeing the same film, or the same car following your car down the route you're taking and parking in the same parking lot.***
So if none of the above is situational irony, what is situational irony? After all, dictionary.reference.com's definition of this form of irony is somewhat misleading: "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected." Unexpected outcomes can include all sorts of things: no one expects a coincidence to occur, just as a hot day in England during December is contrary to expectations. The Oxford English Dictionary's definition adds some helpful remarks, but isn't much better: "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." We're getting warmer, but we're more in Murphy's Law territory than we are approaching a definition of irony. Even the following quotation from the New York Times stylebook does more to establish what irony isn't than what it is:
"Not every coincidence, curiosity, oddity and paradox is an irony, even loosely. And where irony does exist, sophisticated writing counts on the reader to recognize it."The short answer is that people still disagree. I've sifted through several conflicting definitions, and I'm still not 100 percent certain I've pinned down the right one. But the explanation of situational irony that makes the most sense to me is the following: it occurs when someone takes specific actions to achieve a certain outcome, but those actions produce an outcome that is the opposite of what he or she intended. Judging from that definition, intent is a critical part of determining whether or not a situation qualifies as ironic.
For instance, a veterinarian accidentally hitting a cow with his car is not ironic -- just sad. But if the veterinarian was on a job and intended to save the dying cow that he accidentally kills with his car, that's situational irony. Setting a bowl of water atop a freezer door so that it spills on the next person who opens the freezer is a good prank, but if the person who sets the trap forgets about it and drenches himself instead, that's situational irony, too. A billboard warning drivers to keep their eyes on the road that instead distracts drivers and causes accidents? A company forced to recall 80,000 of its buttons promoting toy safety because the buttons themselves were unsafe (see bottom of article)? Take a guess.
But some situations that fall outside of that definition still seem awfully ironic, don't they? A forger selling a fake antique as the real thing but getting paid in counterfeit money, for instance, or other examples of poetic justice -- shouldn't those be called ironic as well?
I'm tempted to agree with the criteria for situational irony proffered by Dr. Martin Maner of Wright State University: "an outcome must be not only contrary to expectation, but perversely and strangely appropriate." In other words, a situation must entertain us and appeal to our sense of the absurd in order for it to qualify as ironic.
Yes, I think I can agree with that.
Irony's power to entertain brings us to another use of irony. Theater and movie buffs will likely be familiar with dramatic irony, which occurs when the audience knows something that one or more characters in the play or film do not. Sophocles' classic (and classic) work, Oedipus the King, teems with dramatic irony. Oedipus' vow to bring the murderer of the previous king of Thebes to justice is a fine example, for the audience knows that (spoiler!) King Laius' murderer is someone Oedipus knows all too well. (Fun fact: King Laius was also slain in what was perhaps one of the first recorded incidents of road rage in the Western world.)
One of my favorite films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, also features dramatic irony as a major theme. The film begins with a man, Joel, and a woman, Clementine, having a seemingly chance meeting on a train, but the movie quickly reveals that they were in love once and went to a doctor to have their memories of each other erased. The audience experiences Joel's memories as the lab technicians erase them, and when the story returns to the former couple in the present, we remember what they chose to forget.
And while we're on the subject of what we know and don't know, the last form of irony we'll be discussing is Socratic irony. A vital tool of the Socratic method, Socratic irony occurs when a speaker feigns ignorance about a subject to prompt his or her students or fellow conversationalists to give their opinion. Then, after they present an argument and the speaker's feigned ignorance puts them at ease, the speaker asks pointed questions of the person(s) who gave the argument, demonstrating flaws in it and proving himself or herself the more skilled debater, despite the sustained show of false modesty. As Shakespeare demonstrated so clearly, and as many comedians continue to demonstrate, the person playing the fool often proves wiser than those who think themselves wise.
Think I've covered all the bases. Should you ever have a conversation with someone who misuses the words sarcasm and irony, feel free to send him or her to this blog. If you're part of the club who has used one or more of the words incorrectly, you're in good company. And if you have your own definitions for sarcasm or irony, send them my way! I'd love to hear what you have to think. Sarcasm I'm not so fond of, but I find irony a marvelous tool that enables us to better appreciate the absurdity of life. That extra layer of humor and meaning can enrich our lives so much. It's one madcap world we live in -- we should be able to laugh at it every once in a while.
'Til next time.
Information purloined from dictionary.reference.com, The Oxford English Dictionary, Columbia University's Media Center for Art History, College Humor, IsItIronic.com and The Wall Street Journal
* : Check out a previous Loft entry on the word schadenfreude for a definition and some discussion
** : Disclaimer: don't follow this link if you mind lewd humor and light profanity. But if you have the stomach for it, Ed Byrne does a hilarious send-up of the song (and provides some great examples of irony to boot!)
*** : By the way, if periodic bursts of light then come from inside the vehicle that look a lot like camera flashes, it's probably not coincidence
