Avalanche expert dies in avalanche. How bizarre. But he should have known better than to go back after his dogs.
Ironic perhaps*, but not completely surprising, really. You’d expect an avalanche expert to spend a lot of time around avalanches/potential avalanches. Too bad he didn’t heed his own warning, though.
*I have a irony-related confession to make: I’m not entirely clear on what is and is not ironic. I cognitively know the dictionary definition, and I know Alanis Morrisette got it all wrong, but I’m insecure about using the word 'cause I’m pretty sure I’d get it wrong too.
Reminds me of a Bill Engvall joke. He was talking about when Dale Earnhart Jr got into an accident and people started making refrences to an “Earnhart Curse.”
“Well, it’s not like these guy were working at the frozen yogurt factory and kept bursting into flames.”
I don’t think this is irony. Is it ironic when you put yourself in danger every day in the course of your job until one day you actually die doing it? Is it irony when coal miners are killed in a mining accident? When butchers cut themselves? When health care workers get a jab from an infected needle? No. It’s bad luck, it’s unfortunate, it’s complacency, it’s perhaps even apt or fitting, but it’s not ironic. Does the word “Expert” make a difference? I don’t know. A man who spends 30 years analysing avalanches may be referred to as an Avalanche Expert, but is he really more expert at his job than a coal miner who spent 30 years mining coal?
When Steve Irwin died, the word “ironic” was thrown around a lot (in the context “Steve Irwin was killed by a wild animal? Haha, that’s ironic!”) but there was no irony in that. The closest thing to irony is that Steve Irwin, a man who worked every day with animals that are regarded as dangerous, was killed by a stingray, an animal that’s not generally regarded as dangerous. Even so, it seems more apt that a man who spent every day working with wild animals was killed by a wild animal than ironic.
Now if your Avalanche Expert had used his expertise to choose to live somewhere he considered safe from avalanches, and then a freak snowfall in that area caused an avalanche that killed him, THAT would be ironic. This is just unfortunate.
Man, it’s like rain - on your wedding day.
If he was an office-bound avalanche expert, and was out skiing on a holiday, then died in an avalanche - that’d be ironic.
Would the fact that a thread about the irony of an avalanche expert dying in an avalanche has devolved into a discussion about irony be ironic?
Huh, I thought the dogs made it ironic. Shows what I know.
I think if an avalance expert got killed in a mudslide it would be ironic.
ISTR that a few years ago there were a couple of vulcanologists who were killed in the pyroclastic wave from a volcano they were studying. My memory may be faulty, but I think some film exists of the flow in question - it was terrifyingly fast. I do remember images of some folks clambering frantically into a van and hightailing it out of the way. If an avalanche-ologist dying in an avalanche was ironic, than this event certainly is, as well.
If he died at a Colorado Avalanche hockey game, would that be ironic?
No, irony is when a longtime state District Attorney known for high-profile corruption busts of financial titans and exclusive, high-class prostitution rings is himself busted for paying for the services of a high-class prostitution ring through a money-laundering shell corporation. Irony in ethical conduct is more usually called “hypocrisy”, though.
Here’s a recent example of irony (I think I have a digital photo of it somewhere): I visited the American Museum of Natural History over the weekend. There’s a special exhibit there right now called “Water: H20 = Life”, discussing the origin, frequency and use of freshwater on the planet. Part of the exhibit contrasts the cost of bottled water (in dollars and in environmental impact) versus simply drinking municipal tap water, which would serve just as well for the vast majority of people in this country and, in fact, is the real source of over 40% of “bottled water” anyway. Next to this was another exhibit on the NYC watershed that extolled its exceptional quality.
As a kind of tie-in, all the water fountains in the museum were highlighted with a backdrop advertising the “H20 = Life” exhibit and the motto: “Delicious! Refreshing! Free! Drink NYC tap water here!” (or something to that effect), with an arrow pointing down at the fountain.
Minor Irony: there is, in fact, no water fountain anywhere in the exhibit itself, which is fairly large and took me about 45 minutes to get through (I’m the type to read each part of the exhibit thoroughly), at the end of which I was pretty thirsty. That’s only a minor irony, as the exhibit is set up in the hall space while the water fountains are placed near bathrooms and stairwells.
Major irony: when I entered the museum I had just finished a large bottle of water that I carry with me and refill. The first water fountain I went to on the first floor had the exhibit backdrop on it, “Drink NYC tap water here!”… And another handwritten sign taped on the fountain, “OUT OF ORDER - SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE”, and I didn’t pass by another water fountain on the way to the H20 exhibit.