[lit-ideas] Re: Let me incentivize you
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:58:41 -0700
Julie Krueger wrote
I have recently heard a particular usage which to my ears is akin to the
scratching of nails on a chalkboard. Specifically, "ironical",
"poetical". Several more, but I can't bring any others to my brain's
surface at the moment.
There's this. Not much help.
[Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage]
ironic, ironical, ironically. For the adjective, choice between ironic
and ironical seems to be determined largely by sentence rhythm. Both
words properly mean ‘of the nature of irony’, i.e. implying the opposite
of what is literally or normally meant by a word, look, etc.:
She gave an ironical laugh as she looked at Guy—Olivia Manning, 1977
. In this sentence ironical shows that the laugh was marking something
other than the usual humour. Both words, however, are now increasingly
used to mean simply ‘odd, strange, paradoxical’, and the same is true of
the corresponding adverb ironically:
It is paradoxical, ‘ironical’ as people say today, that the constitution
should bestow this power on someone who laments constitutionitis in
others—Observer, 1987 /
It is ironic that such a beautiful orderly house should be the setting
of our messy little farce—S. Mason, 1990 /
Ironically the bombing of London was a blessing to the youthful
generations that followed—I. & P. Opie, 1969 /
Ironically enough, the Israeli role in both remains crucial—Sanity, 1991
. These uses, which are surely established despite frequent criticism of
them, perhaps contain an echo of the concept of dramatic irony, in which
an audience is made aware of an act or circumstance that affects the
action on stage (or screen) in a way that is unknown to one or more of
the participants in the drama.
How to cite this entry:
"ironic" Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage. Ed. Robert Allen. Oxford
University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University
Press. Reed College. 15 October 2007
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t30.e2086>
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Robert Paul
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