Everyone has those little things that annoy them. One of my biggest peeves is the misuse of the word ironic. Despite my annoyance at the misuse of the word, I do find it interesting how it has been taken to mean something else, without any revisions to the dictionary. Irony occurs when there is a contrast between the surface meaning and the underlying meaning. Verbal irony is a conflict between what is said and what is meant, situational irony is a conflict between what is intended and what actually happens, and dramatic irony is a conflict between what is said and what the audience knows to be true. Somewhere along the line, the word ironic has been taken to mean a strange coincidence or an unfortunate circumstance, or is sometimes just used in an attempt to inject philosophy into a situation. Generally, I would say that if something is ironic, it doesn't need to be said, and should be interpreted as irony by its audience. The second someone says that something is ironic, I will immediately start picking holes in it, and be sure that it really is irony. I always wonder how the misuse came about though. It's not as if we set out to deliberately misuse a term, it's just become so engrained in our minds that 'ironic' can mean a strange coincidence, that unless we really actively go looking for the definition, we will be stuck using it for the wrong meaning. We can't go looking up every word in the dictionary before we use it, so all we can do is pay attention if we realise we are misusing a word.
Little tidbit, this was originally going to be a Critical Angle post, but I decided that it was dragging too much and not really going anywhere with the examples I included, so would work better as a shorter Morning Muse with just the main argument.
