The American use “ironically” is probably the only difference between our dialects that I’ll stand firm on.
My friends, we already have a use for the word, and it’s not this!
I’m all about linguistic innovation, but using “unironically” in place of “seriously” and “ironically” in place of “sarcastically”/”not seriously" is not happy times for me.
Unless you give me a new word for irony.
I quite like y’all, I use that all the time, not against Americanisms in general, just this one.
yeah playing with the three types of irony was extremely popular in early 1700s britlit. early american lit tried to distinguish itself from britlit by focusing less on irony and more on allegory and symbolism. however by the late 1800s american lit came to emphasize irony almost as hard as the previous century’s britlit had, though i think our only author to really do as much verbal irony (saying one thing, meaning another) as that era of britlit was F Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.
i’m curious now how Australian literature plays with irony. if there’s an absence of verbal irony, is there more literary irony (the consequences of the action are tied comically to the action) and dramatic irony (the audience knows things the characters don’t)? and did the divergence happen because our war of independence resulted in the brits no longer using our southern colonies as a penal colony just as they were getting bored of this?
or were early Australians more likely to reject this device because they felt it was a signifier of their oppressors?
Hi, American checking in. I was taught in English class in high school that irony is an ambulance running people over, not just sarcasm. I do agree that colloquially (and I am probably guilty of it too) we Americans use the word “irony” to talk about things being presented in a non-genuine and earnest manner, to talk about sarcasm and snark and parody.
I did just remember more from English class:
Verbal irony, a type of irony, fits the colloquial definition of sarcasm (“oh, just great” when something upsetting happens). (According to https://literarydevices.net/verbal-irony/ sarcasm is verbal irony used to mock or insult. Don’t 100% remember what they said about sarcasm vs verbal irony in English class.) The irony being talked about here is situational irony. It seems people colloquially use “irony” for “situational irony” and get upset when it gets used to refer to the sarcastic type of “verbal irony”
I played Roblox with my kids for years and didn’t find any shady shit. Not saying there is no shady stuff on there, but after 100s of hours either it’s suddenly gotten worse, we somehow dodged all the shady shit or the media have exaggerated the issue. Take your pick.
I played with my kids because they desperately wanted to join in on the fun but the reports of it being pedo land made me create a rule of “you only play when we play together”. We had great fun, have many fond memories of our time on there.
This kind of reads like a catholic who brought their kids to mass their whole childhood and disbelieves that catholic priests are child molestors because they never molested your child. They don’t prey on children with present caring parents who don’t leave their children unsupervised. They prey on solitary, neglected, vulnerable children, or for catholics those who are willing to trust a priest alone with them. In roblox it’s the same but without the implicit trust of an authority figure. The pedos probably avoided you. You didn’t somehow dodge the shady shit, you inadvertently created a bubble of safety that prevented your kids from being preyed upon because there’s so much easier prey around.
Allowing children on roblox is negligence at this point so I think this is unironically in the right
Deleting Roblox and installing Factorio
You’ll thank me when you’re older, kid.
The factory must grow.
“Why is my child applying to Nestle’s child mines”
The American use “ironically” is probably the only difference between our dialects that I’ll stand firm on.
My friends, we already have a use for the word, and it’s not this!
I’m all about linguistic innovation, but using “unironically” in place of “seriously” and “ironically” in place of “sarcastically”/”not seriously" is not happy times for me.
Unless you give me a new word for irony.
I quite like y’all, I use that all the time, not against Americanisms in general, just this one.
hey don’t blame us, we learned it from the brits
Oh interesting, I hadn’t noticed that!
yeah playing with the three types of irony was extremely popular in early 1700s britlit. early american lit tried to distinguish itself from britlit by focusing less on irony and more on allegory and symbolism. however by the late 1800s american lit came to emphasize irony almost as hard as the previous century’s britlit had, though i think our only author to really do as much verbal irony (saying one thing, meaning another) as that era of britlit was F Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.
i’m curious now how Australian literature plays with irony. if there’s an absence of verbal irony, is there more literary irony (the consequences of the action are tied comically to the action) and dramatic irony (the audience knows things the characters don’t)? and did the divergence happen because our war of independence resulted in the brits no longer using our southern colonies as a penal colony just as they were getting bored of this?
or were early Australians more likely to reject this device because they felt it was a signifier of their oppressors?
My understanding, from how people use it here is that irony is a situation which is a contrast between the expected/intended and actual outcome.
It’s ironic when a fire station burns down
This definition is truly upsetting: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony
Americans, no. Bad Americans.
This definition is correct (until we come up with a good substitute, FFS America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
Glad Wikipedia agrees with me on this one haha We’ll at least the introductory definition.
Edit: to answer your question. I dunno. I just think this form of “ironic” just didn’t take off in Australia.
Mostly because we already have words for what Americans use it for. And don’t have words to replace irony.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hi, American checking in. I was taught in English class in high school that irony is an ambulance running people over, not just sarcasm. I do agree that colloquially (and I am probably guilty of it too) we Americans use the word “irony” to talk about things being presented in a non-genuine and earnest manner, to talk about sarcasm and snark and parody.
This is a relief, there is hope yet haha
I did just remember more from English class: Verbal irony, a type of irony, fits the colloquial definition of sarcasm (“oh, just great” when something upsetting happens). (According to https://literarydevices.net/verbal-irony/ sarcasm is verbal irony used to mock or insult. Don’t 100% remember what they said about sarcasm vs verbal irony in English class.) The irony being talked about here is situational irony. It seems people colloquially use “irony” for “situational irony” and get upset when it gets used to refer to the sarcastic type of “verbal irony”
I refuse to allow my own child on it. It takes zero effort to see all the super shady shit happening there. I wont have my child exposed to that crap.
I played Roblox with my kids for years and didn’t find any shady shit. Not saying there is no shady stuff on there, but after 100s of hours either it’s suddenly gotten worse, we somehow dodged all the shady shit or the media have exaggerated the issue. Take your pick.
I played with my kids because they desperately wanted to join in on the fun but the reports of it being pedo land made me create a rule of “you only play when we play together”. We had great fun, have many fond memories of our time on there.
This kind of reads like a catholic who brought their kids to mass their whole childhood and disbelieves that catholic priests are child molestors because they never molested your child. They don’t prey on children with present caring parents who don’t leave their children unsupervised. They prey on solitary, neglected, vulnerable children, or for catholics those who are willing to trust a priest alone with them. In roblox it’s the same but without the implicit trust of an authority figure. The pedos probably avoided you. You didn’t somehow dodge the shady shit, you inadvertently created a bubble of safety that prevented your kids from being preyed upon because there’s so much easier prey around.
That’s an odd way to twist it. I must have had “parent” tagged to my avatar so to avoid the nasties.