Struggling to understand the difference between irony and unfortunate events. My partner is quite smart and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.
EDIT – Thanks everyone, your responses have really helped. Hopefully I’ll be less likely to make a fool of myself describing something as ironic, in the future.
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I feel like a lot of people here are describing sarcasm as if it’s synonymous with irony, but it isn’t. In some cases, it can even mean something more like hypocritical.
Ex.: It is ironic when Person A, who would be nicely described as a bigot, tries to lecture someone else about their bigotry. It’s like the point Person A is trying to make, is flying directly over Person A’s head, because they’re busy making it to Person B and can’t see how well it applies to themself. Person A isn’t sarcastic – They’re just unwilling to reflect on themselves the same way they judge others. That’s ironic.
A situation is ironic not because it can be spoken of sarcastically, but because there is an outside perspective observing the events who has insider knowledge that lets them know the situation is not quite as straightforward as it seems. To that outside perspective, the situation is ironic, but less so to those who are in the moment who may not realize the irony.
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