OT: Sarcasm and irony

[Brian van den Broek]

bryan rasmussen said unto the world upon 10/10/06 08:25 AM:

<snip>

> As was noted in my original statement the weak form of irony such as
> understood by Danes and I suppose by Americans as well, since that is
> what Steve was originally complaining about, is descended from the
> concept of Dramatic Irony. If you do a dictionary lookup of irony
> dramatic irony will probably be mentioned, also such more antiquated
> usages as Socratic irony.
> 
> These other concepts of irony have not changed. You can use the word
> irony in a technical manner to someone in the dramatic arts and have
> the usage understood.
> 
>  The weak form of irony, verbal irony, is a pretty recent addition to
> the concept of irony.
> 
> To take a wikipedia discussion of the subject:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

<snip>

and earlier:

> Well irony originally started out as a very specific concept of the
>  Ancient Greek drama, this is what we nowadays refer to as Dramatic
>  Irony but it is the original irony. Irony then became a literary
>  concept for plot elements similar to Dramatic irony in books, or a
>  weaker type of the Dramatic irony found in the plays of Shakespeare.
>  People then noticed that life was at times ironic in the literary
>  manner. Nowadays the use of the word irony has degenerated to by
>  pretty much synonymous with sarcasm.


I enjoy a good round of weeping for the future over the declining 
standards as much as the next pedant, but I think I must beg to differ 
here.

A quick check with the on-line text of the second edition of the 
Oxford English Dictionary (sadly, a link only available by 
subscription) gives as the first meaning:

     A figure of speech in which the intended meaning
     is the opposite of that expressed by the words
     used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or
     ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used
     to imply condemnation or contempt.

The first provided use squarely in this sense is from Sir Thomas More 
in 1533. So, the language has been declining for a goodly while now, 
it would seem ;-)

Best to all,

Brian vdB