Sunday, September 22, 2019

This Post Is Literally Ironic




Note:  Any grammatical inaccuracies in this blog are probably intentional, for comedic effect.  Yeah... that's the ticket.

Someone once asked me, "If you could have dinner with any famous person, living or dead, which would you choose?"
And after some thought, I was like... "Um... Living."
I mean, seriously, who chooses dead?  Why would anyone want to have dinner with a dead person, except maybe Hannibal Lecter?

Buuuut... it's possible I misunderstood the spirit of the question.  I'm like that.  I don't always understand language the same way as most people, and it can get me into trouble.

There are three things that are getting on my nerves today:
1. People who misuse the word “Literally”.
2. People who misuse the word “Ironic”.
3. People who complain about people who misuse the words “Literally” or “Ironic”

Okay, let’s start with Literally because it’s easier.

Literally literally means “Actually, not figuratively, not a metaphor, not an expression.”  In other words, if you say it’s literally raining cats and dogs, that means actual cats and dogs are falling from the sky.  There are a lot of words and expressions you can use as an intensifier, like saying something is “as big as a whale” when it’s really not.  But “literally” is supposed to be off limits.  The very nature of the word literally means you shouldn’t use it metaphorically.  It’s the last word you should ever think of using to mean something it doesn’t.

Buuuuut… I also hate the people who complain about it because they always say the same thing:  “Don’t use literally when you mean figuratively.”  You know what?  The don’t MEAN figuratively.  They may be using the word figuratively, and yes, if they were to replace the word literally with figuratively, the sentence would technically be more accurate. But if the word “literally” suddenly ceased to exist, these people wouldn’t suddenly start saying, “I figuratively had a cow.”  No, they’d use a different intensifier, like seriously, or extremely, or incredibly.

I mean, which sounds more like something a real person would say: "I figuratively had a cow" or "I seriously had a cow."  So whenever you correct them by saying, “You mean figuratively,” you look like an idiot.  If you want to correct them, great, but at least suggest a proper substitute.

You know I’ve come across a second way to misuse literally?  I used to know a guy who would use it for extremely dull situations, like, “I literally drank a glass of milk.”  Which isn’t… technically wrong, I guess?   I mean, there probably wasn’t any danger of me thinking he metaphorically drank the milk, but I guess he wanted to be extra clear?  It seems like a waste of a good word on an everyday situation.

Ironic is a bit harder, but that’s because it’s an almost useless word when the grammar cops get a hold of it.  There’s a meme going around that says “There needs to be a word that means what people think ironic means.”  Well, there is, and that word is “ironic.”  Common usage leads to official definitions, that's literally how language evolves.

I’m going to make a confession here.  I have no idea what “ironic” actually means.  I used to know, but then too many opposing forces kept changing the definition on me.  I first learned the word in elementary school.  We were taught that it meant “when something turns out the opposite of what you would expect”, which is pretty close to the third entry on Wiktionary:  “Contrary or opposite to what may be expected.”  Okay, I hate that definition, because it relies on me having normal expectations.  I mean, who decides what is to be expected?

Okay, so I saw a movie once where a guy was looking at himself in his bathroom mirror.  Then he opens the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, grabs his toothpaste, closes the cabinet again… and BAM!  Nothing.  Nobody was revealed to be standing behind him.  No ghost, no psycho killer, no scare chord, we were just back to seeing the guy’s reflection again.  A lifetime of watching scary movies has taught me that anybody who opens a medicine cabinet is going to see a monster behind them when they close it.  Never mind that this was a romantic comedy.  It still subverted my expectations, so apparently that makes it ironic.

Except of course it isn’t.  No one in their right mind is going to argue that it’s ironic for someone to use a medicine cabinet without getting eaten.  I’ve also seen enough crime dramas that if the camera focuses on the ignition when someone starts their car, I expect it to explode.  That doesn’t mean it’s ironic when it doesn’t. My point is, you can’t use a definition that’s so subjective. So, that definition is useless.

The problem is, there’s like, eleventeen different types of Irony, and the definition of each has been in dispute for centuries.  Classical irony, Romantic irony, Cosmic irony, Verbal irony, Situational irony, Dramatic Irony, Tragic Irony, Comic Irony, Historical Irony, Socratic Irony…  I’m not going to go over each one, but if someone says something’s ironic, there’s a good chance it fits at least one of the definitions.  But the grammar cops will get mad at you if you use anything but their favorite one.

But if you go strictly by a grammar cop’s restrictions, the word “irony” is both nearly unusable and almost never used correctly anywhere.  Even Twilight Zone endings are no longer considered ironic by some people, and I refuse to live in a world where Twilight Zone endings aren’t thought of as ironic.  You are dulling the English language every time you correct someone.

The definition I see used most often in casual conversation is “A funny little twist of fate,” which the grammar cops don’t consider a proper use of the word.  But the first use of it in this manner supposedly happened in, like, the 1600s, which is far enough back for it to be considered a valid definition by now, in my opinion.

Now, you know I couldn’t get through this video without mentioning… the song.  You know which one.  Here’s my take.

The first time I heard anyone complain about the song “Ironic”, was on the TV show Lois and Clark.  This is important, because that episode is about twenty three years old now, and it wasn't like the show was known for brilliant observations. So if you're still ragging on the song Ironic, you were scooped more than two decades ago by a silly show based on a comic book.  You're not exactly being edgy.

The problem is, everyone who complains about it says the same thing: That there’s not a single actual example of irony in the song.  Some even make the joke that the song actually is ironic because it’s called “Ironic” despite not having any legitimate examples of irony.  The problem is, unless you’re just using the strictest possible definition of irony, at least one or two examples in the song can be considered ironic.  But no, you said NONE of them were, that is what you said, I heard you.  Which makes you a liar, and I can no longer trust anything else you say, you slimy piece of worm-ridden filth.

Okay, admittedly, rain on your wedding day is not ironic.  Depending on your attitude towards rain, and where you were planning on having the ceremony, rain can be unfortunate, a mild inconvenience, or even a bad omen, but it’s not immediately ironic.  But maybe we don’t know the whole story here.

Maybe the singer has a deathly fear of rain, after her parents were killed in a flood.  Her fear of rain was so great that she started her own company, “Rainstoppers INC”, who specialize in predicting long term weather trends.  When it came to her own wedding, she intentionally booked the ceremony in the driest place on Earth, which Google informs me is the Atacamba Desert in Chile.

She consulted her companies weather predictions as well as public weather reports and even the Farmer’s Almanac so she could be absolutely sure it wouldn’t rain on her special day.

But when it did rain, it was the result of a hurricane that hadn’t been predicted by any of the weather sources.  Worse yet, this hurricane never would have formed if it hadn’t been nudged by the pollution put in the air by the singer’s own company, Rainstoppers, Inc.

So, you really don’t see any irony in that story?  Yeah, I know it doesn’t say any of that in the song, but you have to learn to read between the lines!

And how about those ten thousands spoons, when all you need is a knife?  That's not a normal occurrence, there's obviously a story there.

After pissing off the cutlery mafia, you find yourself trapped inside a burning knife factory.  You’ve been locked inside one of the storage rooms.  The building is burning around you.  There’s an emergency exit door in this room, but the handle has been bound shut by heavy rope.  The knots have been pulled so tight that you can’t untie them.  If only you had a knife!  But wait, you’re in storage room of a knife factory, surrounded by crates.  You hurriedly open the first crate, and find it’s full of spoons.  You open another crate… more spoons.  You soon find that every crate in this room is full of spoons.  The funny part is, this factory doesn’t even make spoons.  They were storing them as a favor to the overstocked spoon factory next door.

Now, you’re seriously telling me that you don’t see any irony in that story whatsoever? None?  Really?  No dramatic irony, no situational irony, none of that?  Are you really so uncreative that you can’t stretch your imagination just a little and meet Alanis halfway, you pathetic little squidlicker?

Like, the song doesn’t say, “Isn’t it ironic in the literary sense.”  The song just asks, “Isn’t it ironic?”  Which could… literally… imply any one of the eleventeen definitions, even one of the informal definitions.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter.  That song made bizillions of dollars, and every time someone complains about it, Alanis gets another nickel, so I doubt she has trouble sleeping at night.

One last thing... We have a cat named Wicket.  A few years ago my Mom found him abandoned as a newborn.  Since he was found in a gooseneck trailer, Mom named him "Goose."  But when she gave him to us, we decided that "Goose" wasn't a geeky enough name.  We renamed him "Wicket" because he kind of looked like an Ewok at the time.  Flash forward a couple of years, and thanks to Captain Marvel, having a cat named Goose actually would have been pretty geeky.  Isn't that ironic?  No seriously, is it?  After researching this blog, I honestly can't tell any more.

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