Grammar Nerd Wednesday: There is no Irony in "Ironic" by Alanis Morrissette.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

The lyrics are in large, italic font. My dickheaded comments follow each line.  Before we begin, let's just define, without explaining, "Ironic."  That will come later:

i·ron·ic  

/īˈränik/

Adjective Using or characterized by irony. Happening in the opposite way to what is expected, thus typically causing wry amusement.

An old man turned ninety-eight.  He won the lottery and died the next day.

This is more of a tragedy than anything.  His intent was never to die the day after striking it rich, but unless his death was from a heart attack at the excitement of winning the lottery, or perhaps immolating himself after he tried to light a cigar with one of his hundreds he’d just won, there really isn’t any irony here.  He probably left this fortune to his wife, or perhaps his children.  Now they can send their special needs child to the school Max went to on Parenthood!

It’s a black fly in your chardonnay

Well, that’s just bad luck.  But, wine isn’t super expensive.  I mean, if you bought a box of wine, you wouldn’t have this problem.  But, your sole intent when opening the bottle of wine wasn’t to keep it free from flies.  It was to get falling down drunk and then fling the bottle at your special needs child who will be starting at a new school soon!

It’s a death-row pardon two minutes too late

Maybe this is how the 98-year-old man died!  Maybe he was like Brooks from Shawshank – an old guy in prison!  This isn’t irony – it’s just the governor having fat fingers and mashing the keypad instead of using a pencil or special dialing wand to dial up Sing-Sing and stop Brooks from taking a seat in the gas chamber.  The intent was always to execute the prisoner, the reversal was just too late!

It’s like rain on your wedding day

It rained on my wedding day. Our intent was not to cast a spell to ward off all rain clouds over Inlet, New York the day my wife and I were married.  It was to get married.  We did.  Nothing ironic about that.

It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid

You’re still getting the ride.  Maybe you could get a voucher for another ride, or a ride back to the starting point since you’ve already paid.  Or an upgrade to first class!

It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take

Like when your friend, the English Professor, told you “Hey, Alanis, maybe you should just thumb through a dictionary and see what Irony actually means.”  You mean like that?

Mr. Play-it-safe was afraid to fly.  He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye. He waited his whole damn life to take that flight, and as the plane crashed down, he thought, “well, isn’t this nice?”

First of all, you’re pretty nonchalant about your fiery end, Mr. Play-it-safe.  You also didn’t really look up flight safety statistics, because, aside from walking, air travel is still the safest means of transportation.  I’m assuming your intent was to get to your destination, not to avoid bursting into flames and plummeting forty thousand feet toward the earth, right?  So, then, this is kind of just bad luck, and also tragic, right?  At least your special needs kid wasn’t on board.  Plus side, you get to see your dad who left you a fortune when he died!

A traffic jam when you’re already late

Poor planning on your part. Also, a traffic jam is a condition, not an outcome.

A no smoking sign on your cigarette break

Your intent was to smoke HERE?  RIGHT HERE WHERE IT IS ALREADY DESIGNATED NO SMOKING?!  WHY ARE YOU SO INSISTENT THAT YOU SMOKE HERE?!

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

Listen, I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at a spoon, but unless you’re Tom Hanks in Cast Away, you’re probably not using clamshells for scooping devices, your spoon probably has a handle.  I’m betting you’re not trying to saw through shoe leather, and need a Ginsu, but you could probably flip that spoon around and cut whatever it is you’re eating with the handle on one of those ten thousand spoons.  You’ll get through this.

It’s meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife

You hussy.

And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

No, Alanis, I don’t.  Here’s why:  Irony is a concept used to exemplify a state which is contrary to what was expected or intended.  Intent is the key to this.  Most of these examples are conditions or coincidences.

The irony would be if the old man played the lottery his entire life, wanting to use the money to buy his dream house, but once he won the lottery, building the house was such a nightmare that he couldn’t live in it because of how onerous the process to build it was for him.  The intent was to build a dream house, but the outcome was that he hated it.

In fact, the only thing ironic about the song “Ironic” is Alanis’s intent to provide examples of irony for her song, and ALL of them aren’t actually ironic.  That was an outcome contrary to her intent!  Unless… what if she planned it that way all along, and the true irony in the song “Ironic” is her inability to properly represent ironic circumstances!  That would be genius!

Except... then, she’d have intended to have non-ironic examples of irony, and that would actually make the outcome not contrary to her intent, which would then not be ironic.  Shit, now I’m all up in my head with this quadruple irony negative thing...