Also ironic - according to the Random House dictionary, "The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or an expression and the context in which it occurs." This definition, surprisingly, is quite a bit tighter than the one employed in Alanis Morissette's song (which should be retitled "Bummer"). It takes all the guts out of irony to mean, "Something happened that I didn't like" (such as "black fly in your chardonnay" or "rain on your wedding day").

submitted by Michelle Feldman

TrackBack ping me at:

http://www.wordpirates.com/index.cgi.trackback