# Simpler examples of irony **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 4, 2006, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188 "2006-10-04T01:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/21 "2006-10-05T21:05:00Z")
Another true one: student writes an editorial decrying mandatory seat belt laws. Four months later, he dies in an accident he would have survived if he’d been wearing his seatbelt (he was ejected from the vehicle, while the driver and other passenger, both in seatbelts, survived). [Linky](http://www.snopes.com/autos/accident/seatbelt.asp). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/22 "2006-10-06T01:24:56Z")
My friend and I were drinking a couple of beers on the way back to his appartment from the corner bodega store. We got stopped by the cops and cited\* because ironically, the had stepped up patrols in the area because said friend had been complaining to the cops about all the junkies and drunks hanging out in front of his appartment at night. \*Note that the citiation was for drinking in public, not irony. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/23 "2006-10-06T01:26:13Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] Rain on his “wedding day.” [/QUOTE] or perhaps a free ride after he has already paid? ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/24 "2006-10-06T04:07:14Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > Rain on his “wedding day.” [QUOTE=msmith537] or perhaps a free ride after he has already paid? [/QUOTE] You want prison irony? Here: Canadian chanteuse sentenced to the electric chair for murdering the word “ironic.” Her Death Row pardon comes…ah, I can’t even say it. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/25 "2006-10-06T06:36:11Z")
[QUOTE=Frelling Tralk] The guy in my school district trying to ban _Farenheit 451_. [/QUOTE] How about the high school that [banned the library’s “Banned books” display?](http://www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=6611&CHID=2) ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/26 "2006-10-06T07:14:53Z")
A guy serving life without parole discovers immortality. ---
**Author:** ![aclubs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@aclubs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aclubs)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/27 "2006-10-06T08:54:14Z")
“The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention. Now that. Is. Irony!” ---
**Author:** ![Shecky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shecky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shecky)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/28 "2006-10-06T10:38:51Z")
Tell him Fernando Collor becoming Minister of Banking. For the prison, tell him to watch Shawshank. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/29 "2006-10-06T12:39:09Z")
[QUOTE=groo] Whenever I think of irony, I get the image of Jim Fixx, a big proponent of jogging in the 1970’s, dying of a heart attack. [/QUOTE] So far, this is pretty much the clearest example. But only if the heart attack was directly caused by the jogging. Otherwise it’s simply tragic coincidence. **msmith537** is a pretty good one because the guys own efforts to clean things up got him in trouble. But most of the examples in this thread are simply humourous coincidences ( **Oakminster** ) or hypocritical behaviour ( **hajario** ). Not that **hajario** was a hypocrit. His example was. For something to be truly ironic, there has to be opposite result of what was intended. Like a man who takes pills to be healthy but grabs the wrong ones and kills himself. Had he not been trying to stay healthy, he would have lived longer. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/30 "2006-10-06T13:04:08Z")
George Carlin’s example: If somone in a devasted country is killed by a parachute dropping food supplies over that country. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188/31 "2006-10-06T13:04:44Z")
How about “Banned Book Week” festivities ceelebrating books that are readily available through Amazon, and at ANY bookstore or library in the country? Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye are “banned” books, huh? The censors must be really falling down on the job, then! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simpler-examples-of-irony/375188.md?page=1)