Dateline had a thing last night about a woman who started a controlled-drinking movement (Managed Moderation?) with which people could drink a certain number of drinks per week. One firm rule was that they would never drink and drive. She was all over the media and wrote a book.
Then she fell off her own plan and ended up killing two people in a drunk driving crash.
Would this situation qualify as ironic?
Well, I wish you luck, but doubt that this will end well.
The teacher will either accept your input or ignore it or fail you kid.*
I like most teachers, but I have had my eyes opened about them. I cannot tell you the number of “I’m your child’s second grade teacher and here’s a bit about me” type letters that have come home, riddled with grammar and punctuation errors, and most heinous of all-misspellings. I gave up a long while back. (although in 6th grade, we went over the letter together-my daughter and I-and proofread it etc. It was fun).
*just kidding.
No, no, no! Please, tell me the right word. I love words. I don’t like to see the poor little dears mangled.
[rant] This is Exhibit 245 of why the American School System sucks: it was determined at a pretty young age (1st grade) that I was beyond my peers in writing ability, so I was yanked out of the regular Language Arts curriculum and privately tutored or placed in classes in creative writing for 11 years. The basics of grammar came more or less intuitively, but that meant that I was never taught them in school. It wasn’t until I got into high school, in French class, that I learned things like “past participle” and “plusperfect”. A lot of it I was able to apply to English, and it became the only grammar class I’ve ever had. I’ve read some books on grammar on my own, but of course there’s things I think I know that I’m incorrect on. [/rant]
And, of course, it was late when I wrote that (well, late for me) and my brain farted. I don’t remember the correct word for what I mean - the pronouns ain’t a-matchin’ because they refer to two different things.
However, please note I am not an elementary school teacher teaching grammar! If I were, (If I was? I’ve NEVER gotten that one straight!) I’d review the lesson plan with **Excalibre **first. 
As for the period outside the quotes thing: I had a sentence-Nazi teacher in college, in yet another creative writing course, who taught us that. She was an ex-newspaper editor. Some of her other rules included: no words over three syllables and no sentence with more than 15 words. That was a fun class. :rolleyes: But since the period thing matched what I had intuited on my own (those quotes are to label the thing as a word, as opposed to giving the word it’s literal meaning in the sentence, so they are part of the word, and as such should be punctuated as a whole unit, not broken apart by a period) I believed her.
But just look at your own observation: “It must be extremely gradual then. For some anal retentive reason I’m fixated on this rule, so I notice its violation (or not) all the time.” If you’re noticing it’s “violation”, then its adoption is certain, is it not?
From here:
Unfortunately, the NC State Online Writing Lab has lost their funding, and said FAQ is no longer available.
We none of us learned plusperfect and dative case etc in English–at least not those of us who went to elementary school in the 70s around here.
I also didn’t learn any of that stuff until I took German.
We did learn some sentence diagramming and the parts of speech etc. I was in the highest reading group etc–and I don’t know if it was assumed that we already understood it intuitively or not, but we had no exposure to it until foreign language.
Learning German helped me learn about English. Drat-not ironic.
<snaps fingers>
Are you suggesting that if I notice a violation of the rules of grammar and punctuation then that means that the rule is in question? If so, then the rule regarding the agreement in number between subject and verb is also up for grabs, since I notice that violation also. There’s all kinds of grammar violations you can notice if you take a mind to (like all us obsessive types). They appear to be what most violations are–careless or ignorant exceptions, not an attempt to establish a new rule.
Can’t understand your sentence-Nazi teacher, since all true grammar Nazis cluck their tongues over any violation of the punctuation-inside-the-quotation-mark rule. Perhaps she was a spy for the other side? 
BTW, I had a boss once who refused to follow this rule, finding it illogical and unsatisfying. He likened it to tucking your shirt into your boxers–one layer too deep and it just shouldn’t be done. Of course, rules are rules. If we let this one go, next thing you know it’s anarchy.
No, I’m suggesting that since it is a valid variation on a language we write (aka, British style), and since it’s something you notice a lot AND since I’m a descriptivist, not a prescriptionist, that maybe the tide is turning, ever so slowly, and being more logical about where the stupid period goes.
But it’s not something I get all het up about, really. I suggest we join forces and go massacre those who confuse “they’re” and “their” and “you’re” and “your” and then we can duke it out over periods later. 
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. They’re the real villains…wait a minute…you almost had me there. I must be strong, must be strong. Never give in, never surrender to those outside-the-quote anarchists. 
From a comedian:
There’s a vast ocean. And in this ocean is a cruise ship, tiny by comparison. And on this cruise ship is a tiny swimming pool. You drown in the pool. That’s irony.
I don’t think that has changed at all, we never got anything but the most basic notions of grammar in elemenary school in the 90s. Or as Henry Higgins put it:
“There even are places where English completely disappears; in America they haven’t used it for years.”
The ocean/pool thing really isn’t ironic on its face. If you want an aquatic irony, consider a lifeguard drowning … that’s ironic.
Or a lifeguard using Socratic irony in attempt to teach a trainee lifeguard rescue tactics, and drowning in the process. That’s Socratic irony and the usual irony wrapped together in a burrito of ironicy-ness.
So, you’re saying that you’re Head Over Feet? 
As a CW/English major, I can tell you that “Irony” is one of the more difficult concepts to grasp (though not the most difficult…next semester, we’ll tackle Wit.) It has many different meanings depending on context, and it doesn’t help that people frequently misuse the word. Then there’s that bloody song. :mad:
As for the “punctuation outside the quotes” thing…you know, that’s something I rebelled against in high school. The rule was to always put the mark inside the quote, like “this,” but that looks plain stupid, so I always did it like “this”. I’m sure it went in my Permanent Record as a behavioral problem…but it’s refreshing to see the world finally turning around to my point of view. Hey, sometimes you gotta stick to your guns.
I should dearly hope you didn’t learn about the dative case of English in school, given that English doesn’t have one.
FWIW, I agree with you.
Interesting. I’d always known the general meaning of irony (especially as it differs from Alanis’), but until reading the linked definition, I didn’t realize that I was also a frequent practicioner of socratic irony. Cool.
Oy–bite me, darling. It was an example, posted (I think) in the wee hours of the morning. <clutches at remnants of grammar clothing, ripping them and exposing herself to ridicule and derision by Grammar Nazis. Steps out of soup line>
We have indirect objects in English-isn’t that similiar to Dative(?) <struggles mightily to remember any dative anything from German and pretty much fails>
Ah, crap-I give up. I’ll start writing in fragments. Like this. Soon, I"ll b illet’rete…
Someone was sufficiently perturbed by Alanis Morisette’s grasp of irony to post a question on Google Answers.
Auggh. I know how to spell ‘Morissette’. I really, truly do. Sorry about the typo.
Sarcasm is irony, specifically aimed at a person, and designed to be hurtful.
We do indeed have indirect objects in English (according to most grammars. I should note that it has been questioned by some whether we have genuine indirect objects.) And the dative case is the one used to mark indirect objects. But in English, we don’t have much in the way of case marking - we only do it on pronouns, and we only have three cases, the subject case, the object case, and the possessive case. So, for instance, her is marked the same way in sentences like I gave her a car and I gave her away at her wedding, even though in the former, her is the indirect object, and in the latter, it’s the direct object.
I’m not trying to harp on you for a minor error. My frustration is the fact that basic grammar isn’t really taught to students, so intelligent people who have a well-rounded education naturally glean their knowledge of grammar from the study of foreign languages. That’s not a sign of their own failings, after all - it’s an effort to understand something they haven’t formally studied, English grammar, by comparison to something they have studied, which is the grammar whatever foreign language they’re familiar with. That’s a laudable impulse, but it can also be deceptive. It leads to people mistakenly assuming the existence of a grammatical category in English based on its existence in analogous uses in a foreign language. I’m quite used to hearing people talk about the imperfect aspect of English, even though it doesn’t have one. It wouldn’t be necessary to piece together a knowledge of English grammar from bits of other languages’ grammars if English grammar were normally taught to students.