I’ve always avoided using the word ‘ironic’ because I’m worried about using it incorrectly. I was listening to ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morrisette and remembered she had been called out for not understanding what ironic meant. I find most explanations to be confusing and so I figured I’d ask here.
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So, there are two ways to think about language. The first is prescriptivism. This involves a central authority (like your teacher) telling you the what the word means. “Irony is where the elevator at the elevator school is broken AND the cause was the teacher of the elevator school showing the class what a working elevator looks like.”
The second way to think about language is and mean is defined by everyone and as long as we all understand each other that’s what the word means. (This is actually how the English language works) for irony we have a massively popular and well known song that has been brought up over and over again, Ironic, none of the sentences in the song were ironic at the time of recording. but now, they are because lots of people think they are. The same thing happened with the word literally which literally means figuratively (these two words are opposite to each other and yet mean the same thing in certain cases) honestly the first definition of irony is exhausting. The second on the other hand,, is real easy to understand. So, the later caught on very quickly.
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