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.
To me, the original post was riddled with literary irony - they were saying things whose words meant one thing but the overall post was actually making fun of the ideas the words were presenting.
My comment serves to state that I agree with the point the words are making and not the meaning through the lens of irony. Ie, unironically.
Cambridge dictionary 2nd definition of irony
irony noun [U] (TYPE OF SPEECH)
the use of words that are the opposite of what you mean, as a way of being funny
I respect the pushback though. I have similar gripes with “sarcasm” being used when “irony” is correct and vice versa.
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?
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.
To me, the original post was riddled with literary irony - they were saying things whose words meant one thing but the overall post was actually making fun of the ideas the words were presenting.
My comment serves to state that I agree with the point the words are making and not the meaning through the lens of irony. Ie, unironically.
Cambridge dictionary 2nd definition of irony
irony noun [U] (TYPE OF SPEECH) the use of words that are the opposite of what you mean, as a way of being funny
I respect the pushback though. I have similar gripes with “sarcasm” being used when “irony” is correct and vice versa.
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?