Isn't It Ironic...Don't You Think?

No, Alanis, I don’t think it’s ironic. At all.

I was driving to work this morning, and I left a bit earlier than normal to avoid traffic. Instead, I actually hit more traffic. How ironic, I thought.

Then I thought again: No, it’s not ironic–unless you’re Alanis Morissette.

See, way back in 1996 Alanis became the laughingstock of English majors everywhere when she released her hit single, "Ironic." The song purported to be a listing of several ironic anecdotes, but none of them were truly ironic in the classical sense of the word. Well...the "no smoking sign on your cigarette break" might be ironic, but all the others are simply a series of bummers. Black fly in your Chardonnay? Bummer. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife? Bummer.

But not ironic.

So a while back, to explain this phenomenon of people saying things are ironic when they really aren’t, I coined the phrase "Alanis Morissette Irony." See, there’s actual irony (defined by American Heritage as "the use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning") and Alanis Morissette irony (which is something that’s not really ironic at all, but is an amusing bummer).

I used to think (like all English majors) that Alanis had to be the biggest moron on the planet because of this song. Then it occurred to me that maybe she’s not a moron at all; perhaps she’s a genius. Consider: Alanis writes a song called "Ironic" that has nothing to do with irony–and isn’t that ironic...don’t you think?