# Songs that have been misinterpreted.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-have-been-misinterpreted/851049>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 4, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-have-been-misinterpreted/851049 "2020-04-04T12:27:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/59ef9b/32.png) [@Yorkshire\_Pudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorkshire_Pudding)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2020, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-have-been-misinterpreted/851049/101 "2020-04-07T09:17:31Z")

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> [@Sitnam](#):
>
> The only thing ironic in Alanis Morrisette’s song is the title, but that seems lost on most of the people I hear misuse the word regularly.

That’s not a song’s meaning being misinterpreted though, is it? That’s - at most - the same concept being misinterpreted by both the singer and the audience…if you insist on a particular moment in the evolution of the word’s meaning as being immutable.

But that’s not how meaning works. We’re not all speaking in caveman grunts, or Proto Indo-European.

Meanings expand, contract, soften, intensify, invert and just generally shift. So finally relaxing ones long-standing “flying’s too dangerous” policy, only to thus find oneself on one of the tiny number of flights which crash, _is_ - in common parlance - ironic.

And if it’s common enough parlance, it becomes use, not misuse.

> **[The 3 Most Common Uses of Irony - The Oatmeal](https://theoatmeal.com/comics/irony)**
>
> A little bit ironic, dontcha think?

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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2020, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-have-been-misinterpreted/851049/102 "2020-04-07T13:42:19Z")

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> [@ZonexandScout](#):
>
> Do you mean “Hooked On A Feeling” written by Mark James?

Yes. Shit, what was I smoking?

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