Irony Warning

Marker for the stuff that some just don't seem to get.

Or maybe we just like the smug satisfaction we get from letting you guys experience smug satisfaction, something you so clearly find titillating.

High-brow alternative to ;) and other emoticons, because it's just not British to show emotion on delivery of irony.

Is it true British irony to add "That was irony"?

Irony: Not to be confused with BritishHumour, which, in turn, should be distinguished from the generic category *Oxymoron* [see also: NullSet] --JohnReynoldsTheStudent

Some Brits seem to think they have cornered the world market on irony. This misunderstands; it is dry wit for which Britain is (in-)famous -- which overlaps with, but is by no means identical to irony.

It is also quite possible that British dry humour comes in two forms, by analogy with cooking: French cooking clearly originated in France, but is nonetheless practiced here and there worldwide. British cooking also obviously originated in Britain, but unlike French cooking, is never practiced outside of Britain -- at least, certainly never on purpose by people lacking high malice. Some forms of dry British humour are copied and exported, others perhaps are not.

Some British have claimed that the non-exported forms of British dry humour and cooking are unappreciated by the rest of the world, a high irony considering that in fact those forms are actually actively quarantined by the outside world. -- DougMerritt

Kidney pie, anyone?

From BesottedWithStaticTypeChecking:

For Americans: ... that curious British stuff called irony which answer will give the least offence?

Question for AustralianAustralians?: are Limeys ever allowed to PissTake? No, absolutely not.

The Flying Doctors?

From ExtremeIconoclasmQuestioned:

Probably a lot of our difficulty here may go back to that funny English word 'irony', something that exists in 'humour' over here but not I gather in 'humor' where you come from.

Funny that such a great concept is embedded in just a little "u"! WilliamOfOccam was a Brit wasn't he? We try to be concise in making the distinctions that really matter.

Speaking as a strine living in seppoland, I have to say it's not true that Americans are oblivious to irony. -- PeterMerel

Maybe a greater percentage don't get it? But no offence meant. I love GarrisonKeillor? - how'd you classify his stuff?

Irony, satire, taking the piss? HaikuMe

Satire make me sad Taking the piss makes them mates Ironically

I think that American irony moved to Canada.

"The ironic nation is the nation as self-willed has-been, formerly earnest and formerly consequential, now marking time in the twilight state that is halfway between mattering and not, in permanent danger of being annexed by Disney.... England is a bifurcated nation, irony-wise. The ruling class has been ironic (more ironic even than the French, apparently just out of ancient competitive spirit) since Virginia Woolf or possibly Oscar Wilde, and is by now so deep into the stuff that it will probably never again produce anything of actual value."

- Michael Kelly, editor, National Journal

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/columns/kellymichael/A47694-2000Jul4.html

Ouch. I wonder if Jeremy Paxman would have an answer to that. I recommend his The English in this area, self-critical but affectionate, from an astute "English Jew" with a good grasp of history.

What reason is there to think that such things are as recent as Woolf/Wilde???

: To the Brit, everything is desperate and nothing is serious; to the American, nothing is desperate and everything is serious.

Say that to the Early Peoples of America - The Desperately Serious ones at Plymouth. America has always been a refuge for ones who are desperate and so serious. To pick up from one's roots and go thousands and tens of thousands of miles to a new land requires desperation and serious intent. (Saying nothing of what made them so) Isn't that ironic!

why do you think they had to leave England?

To avoid tea taxes. If England didn't raise the tax on tea, they would today be raking in 10 billion a year in surplus taxes on the British colony of America. That tax was the worst economic decision in the history of the world.

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?

Baldric: Yeah, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.!

"Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a, a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at." (Steve Martin as C.D. Bales in Roxanne)

For clear examples of British humor compare the original (British) version of TheOffice? versus the American copy. Everything removed in the American one is quintissentially British Humor.

I can remember an occasion many years ago when someone was using irony when addressing a large gathering of people for whom he felt considerable sympathy. He used it so well that most of the audience thought he was being serious and was unsympathetic. They became angry. I exchanged glances with a friend. We both knew the speaker well. "There goes Tom again, losing the audience." Tom Litterick, M.P. for Selly Oak, Birmingham, U.K. 1974-1979, died 1981, not forgotten

-- JohnFletcher