Comments on: Stop Picking on Alanis! http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/ I have no idea whether ''The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy'' is a good album, but I might have to buy it just on the basis of its awesome name Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:08:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: Mitch4 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26773 Mitch4 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:32:11 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26773 2009/10/18 Pros & Cons for Sunday 2009/10/18 http://cserver.king-online.com/content/Lawyer?date=2009-10-18&referer=http://www.dailyink.com Judge: You shall go to the State Penitentiary for five years. [Second panel] Defendant: If I had been given a <b>fraction</b> of the money spent on solving my crime, tracking me down, arresting, interrogating and charging me, putting me on trial in front of a jury of my peers, finding me guilty and sending me to prison for five years ... [Third panel] Defendant continues: I'd ever have broken the law in the first place. Judge: Ironic, isn't it? ------ 2009/10/18

Pros & Cons for Sunday 2009/10/18

http://cserver.king-online.com/content/Lawyer?date=2009-10-18&referer=http://www.dailyink.com

Judge: You shall go to the State Penitentiary for five years.
[Second panel]
Defendant: If I had been given a fraction of the money spent on solving my crime, tracking me down, arresting, interrogating and charging me, putting me on trial in front of a jury of my peers, finding me guilty and sending me to prison for five years …
[Third panel]
Defendant continues: I’d ever have broken the law in the first place.
Judge: Ironic, isn’t it?

——

]]> By: Mitch4 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26531 Mitch4 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:36:37 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26531 Here's one with a direct discussion of the language question! (And brings up "kitsch".) Rabbits Against Magic for Monday 2009-10-12 http://www.gocomics.com/rabbitsagainstmagic/2009/10/12/ Panel 1- Eightball: Look! I got a boxing nun hand puppet. Weenus: *Sigh*. More ironic kitsch for our disposable culture to consume. Panel 2 - Eightball: What's ironic about it? Weenus: Because nuns are the least likely people you'd expect to see boxing. Panel 3 - Weenus is nocked out on the floor, the nun toy has her boxing glove extended Eightball: sister Knuckles doesn't read the memos. My take: His original use of "ironic" was okay, plugging into the recently popular sense of "disavowing one's guilty pleasures or signs of half-serious half-unserious style choice". [Though I'm probably overstating how far the half-serious side is acknowledged ... when someone protests "I was being ironic!" they want to claim "I don't really like that stuff at all!"] But then the explicit "least likely" explanation is quite off-target, I think. Here’s one with a direct discussion of the language question!
(And brings up “kitsch”.)

Rabbits Against Magic for Monday 2009-10-12
http://www.gocomics.com/rabbitsagainstmagic/2009/10/12/

Panel 1-
Eightball: Look! I got a boxing nun hand puppet.
Weenus: *Sigh*. More ironic kitsch for our disposable culture to consume.
Panel 2 -
Eightball: What’s ironic about it?
Weenus: Because nuns are the least likely people you’d expect to see boxing.
Panel 3 -
Weenus is nocked out on the floor, the nun toy has her boxing glove extended
Eightball: sister Knuckles doesn’t read the memos.

My take:
His original use of “ironic” was okay, plugging into the recently popular sense of
“disavowing one’s guilty pleasures or signs of half-serious half-unserious style choice”.
[Though I’m probably overstating how far the half-serious side is acknowledged … when
someone protests “I was being ironic!” they want to claim “I don’t really like that stuff at
all!”]
But then the explicit “least likely” explanation is quite off-target, I think.

]]> By: Mitch4 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26528 Mitch4 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:45:45 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26528 Another one ... Loose Parts http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=a1f95a1056dba1f4bfb5d2701b7dfc41&w=450.0 or http://www.gocomics.com/looseparts/2009/10/12/ People chatting at a party. Caption: "It's a cause fraught with irony." T-shirt reads: "SAVE THE PLAIN WHITE T-SHIRT" --- My take: not terribly funny, but the use of "irony" is entirely "correct" and traditional. Another one …

Loose Parts
http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=a1f95a1056dba1f4bfb5d2701b7dfc41&w=450.0
or
http://www.gocomics.com/looseparts/2009/10/12/

People chatting at a party.
Caption: “It’s a cause fraught with irony.”
T-shirt reads: “SAVE THE PLAIN WHITE T-SHIRT”

—

My take: not terribly funny, but the use of “irony” is entirely “correct” and traditional.

]]> By: Mitch4 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26505 Mitch4 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:59:30 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26505 A couple more recent appearances of "irony" / "ironic" / "ironically". What's your take as to whether these are correct/traditional/familiar uses of those words? 1) Zits today (2009-10-12) http://cserver.king-online.com/content/Zits?date=2009-10-12&referer=http://www.dailyink.com&size=large "Jeremy, you're wearing my old vest to school!" "It's ironic dress day. [next panel] We're supposed to wear something that we would never be caught dead wearing." 2) Rubes yesterday http://comics.com/rubes/2009-10-11/ Chicken speaking at a funeral, picture of smiling egg propped up on coffin. "Humpty was a good egg who always looked at life on the sunnyside, which ironically is exactly where he ended up." ---- My takes: 1) Is increasingly popular recently, but entirely in accord with some traditional ("correct") usage. [I do have some objections to this approach to life, but not as a matter of putative word misuse.] 2) This is a bit off from the central meaning of the traditional usage patterns. I won't quite call it wrong, but there would surely be better ways of putting it. A couple more recent appearances of “irony” / “ironic” / “ironically”.
What’s your take as to whether these are correct/traditional/familiar uses of those words?

1) Zits today (2009-10-12)
http://cserver.king-online.com/content/Zits?date=2009-10-12&referer=http://www.dailyink.com&size=large
“Jeremy, you’re wearing my old vest to school!”
“It’s ironic dress day. [next panel] We’re supposed to wear something that we would never be caught dead wearing.”

2) Rubes yesterday
http://comics.com/rubes/2009-10-11/
Chicken speaking at a funeral, picture of smiling egg propped up on coffin.
“Humpty was a good egg who always looked at life on the sunnyside, which ironically is exactly where he ended up.”

—-

My takes:

1) Is increasingly popular recently, but entirely in accord with some traditional (”correct”) usage. [I do have some objections to this approach to life, but not as a matter of putative word misuse.]

2) This is a bit off from the central meaning of the traditional usage patterns. I won’t quite call it wrong, but there would surely be better ways of putting it.

]]> By: Mitch4 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26462 Mitch4 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:54:55 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26462 and "fitting" and “fitting”

]]> By: Lola http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26460 Lola Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:56:00 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26460 apt apt

]]> By: Lihtox http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26459 Lihtox Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:03:22 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26459 The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a word that means "amusingly, pointedly, or unexpectedly appropriate", so "ironic" has been filling that niche. For example, consider the urban legend of a drive-in theater that was showing the movie Twister when it was destroyed by a tornado. What is the word for something like that? Appropriate doesn't fit, and coincidental doesn't seem strong enough to me. Adding an adjective like "eerily" to either might do the trick, but it would be much better to have a single word for it. Perhaps we can import something from French or another language? That said, I myself am careful to use ironic only to mean "the opposite of what one might expect", and whenever I hear the word used I stop and think about whether the situation really is, in fact, ironic. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be a word that means “amusingly, pointedly, or unexpectedly appropriate”, so “ironic” has been filling that niche. For example, consider the urban legend of a drive-in theater that was showing the movie Twister when it was destroyed by a tornado. What is the word for something like that? Appropriate doesn’t fit, and coincidental doesn’t seem strong enough to me. Adding an adjective like “eerily” to either might do the trick, but it would be much better to have a single word for it. Perhaps we can import something from French or another language?

That said, I myself am careful to use ironic only to mean “the opposite of what one might expect”, and whenever I hear the word used I stop and think about whether the situation really is, in fact, ironic.

]]> By: Todd http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26454 Todd Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:21:16 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26454 What's more ironic than Alanis playing God (in Kevin Smith's Dogma)? What’s more ironic than Alanis playing God (in Kevin Smith’s Dogma)?

]]> By: Todd http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26452 Todd Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:55:41 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26452 I don't think the tobacco exec dying of a smoking disease is ironic; it's quite appropriate. Now the surgeon general dying of a smoking disease would be ironic. About the comic: We don't know that the fortune teller is working with the attacker, but we can deduce that she's just told him he's going to get hit with a club. To my knowledge, ironic is used correctly in this comic. I don’t think the tobacco exec dying of a smoking disease is ironic; it’s quite appropriate. Now the surgeon general dying of a smoking disease would be ironic.

About the comic: We don’t know that the fortune teller is working with the attacker, but we can deduce that she’s just told him he’s going to get hit with a club. To my knowledge, ironic is used correctly in this comic.

]]> By: Mark in Boston http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26208 Mark in Boston Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:56:15 +0000 http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/2009/10/03/stop-picking-on-alanis/#comment-26208 From Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755): IRONY. noun substantive. A mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words: as, "Bolingbroke was a holy man." From Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755):

IRONY. noun substantive. A mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words: as, “Bolingbroke was a holy man.”

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