… and hopefully buying herself a dictionary.
Here’s my WAG on the subject of lucky rain.
Rice is thrown because it is supposed to represent fertility. Fertility was considered highly desirable by most folks getting married in past ages. Nowadays, fertility is often not highly desired, and sometimes not wanted at all, but I digress.
Because fertility was highly desired, and random rather than controllable, it was subject to superstition, such as the rice thing.
Rain is associated with fertility. It was assumed that when rain fell from the sky, it literally “fertilized” the ground and vegetation was the result.
Rain would therefore likely be considered a spontaneous omen of good luck, while throwing rice would be considered directed luck.
Even with declining interest in great fertility, the association of wedding-day rain and good luck would persist.
Just a thought.
Butthead: Hey, isn’t there like… a word for it when something happens, you know like, when you don’t expect it?
Stewart: You mean… ironic?
Butthead: No way, peckerbutt! It’s like, an English word!
No one has produced an definition for “irony” that clearly spells out what it is. The word “incongrous” or “incongruity” is not clear. What does it mean to be incongruous?
Is it incongruous to rain on what is supposed to be a happy, joyous occassion?
Is it incongruous to be late, and then run into a traffic jam that delays you more?
Is it incongruous to find a fly in your glass of Chardonnay?
What the hell makes something “incongruous” for the purposes of satisfying the definition of irony?
I get saying the opposite of what you mean - Getting raked over by the boss and then saying, “Well, that was fun.” But how is that different than sarcasm?
The isitironic website was not helpful. They attempt to give definitions, but don’t really clarify the difference between sarcasm and irony, nor do they clarify what incongruous means. And they claim to provide examples of each and then don’t.
As for Alannis Morrisette, I like the song and the album, but misuse of irony isn’t her worst crime on that song. She pronounces the word as “figgers”! Figgers - aren’t those people who grow figs?
And then there’s the refrain:
But none of the examples she gives are of life helping out when your luck is down, they’re all screwing you over worse. So unless your version of “a funny way of helping you out” is to kick you in the nuts, the examples she gives don’t match the refrain.
And there is one true example of irony in the song.
Outstanding words, Idle Thoughts.
I think like Winona Ryder’s character in Reality Bites
Remember? She is interviewing for a journalism job and is asked to define irony. She says “That’s a good question. Well, I can’t really define irony…but I know it when I see it.”
yes, it’s by Alanis Morisette off her Album “jagged little Pill.”
I dunno. Incongruous brings to mind a different song. I’m Just A Bill.
What if you lived in Seattle and had a November wedding planned but you didn’t want bad weather so you decided to get married in Hawaii on the beach but when the wedding day came there was a terrible rainstorm and the beach washed away but meanwhile in Seattle they had sunny skies with unseasonably warm temperatures?
Wouldn’t it be ironic then?
Would it be more ironic still if the band at that wedding was Weather Report and they played the Alanis Morrisette song?
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1925705
A music video to correct Alanis’ song, in the same syle.
That caught me off guard. Excellent.
Ok, I love how people take this on as a pet peeve, and I agree that the song is flawed, but to say that nothing in the song is ironic is less than accurate. Meyer6, I know you said almost nothing, but i’m just using the quote to illustrate my point.
Among the definitions of irony:
- the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning (Literary)
- an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. (Situational)
- A device in which the audience of a dramatic or literary work is privy to information the characters are not. (Dramatic)
Ok so almost nothing in the song contains literary or dramatic irony, but yes, quite a few of the events depicted in the song are in fact, ironic. There are more interpretations of what ironic means, especially on internet message boards, but face it, there is irony in the song.
/not an Alanis fan.
//grammar fan.
- A bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.
Wasn’t it that Willie Shakesberg guy that wrote:
“Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.”
That’s good advice.
That the OP didn’t take.
Too bad his name wasn’t The Googler. Cuz y’know, that would have been…
More Efficient? A copyright violation? Easier to spell? C’mon, help me out here.
…or possibly S.E. Yahoo!
She was using it as a lesson in what is NOT irony. :rolleyes:
And Sarah Palin used her left hand for crib notes because she was making fun of leftists. :rolleyes:
I like the evisceration Ellen DeGeneres did of this insipid song in one of her specials:
"No, dear, a fly in your Chardonnay isn’t ironic. It’s tragic, but not ironic.
Irony is naming the national airport after the president who fired all the air traffic controllers."
Finding a bunch of spoons when all you need is a knife could be ironic if you were in charge of making logistics decisions for the restaurant and you pushed hard for increasing spoon purchasing at the expense of cutting back knife purchasing. Of course, the rest of your staff fought you on the issue because they know that there is a knife shortage but you know better and your stubborn. Now the real kicker is, the whole reason you need the knife is because you are being attacked by your crazed stepfather who raised you with an intense passion for collecting antique knives ( or spoons you could go either way. )