OT: Sarcasm and irony

[Steve Holden]

bryan rasmussen wrote:
>>>>E. g. [in Java there is] no operator overloading, but "+"
>>>>concatenation of strings. What if you'd like to implement your own
>>>>string-derived class? Ah, never mind. Operator overloading is
>>>>bad(tm) ;) <= Irony, definitely
>>>
>>>Definitely? That one strikes me more as sarcasm.
>>
> 
> 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.
> 
... in America. It's well-known among Brits that Americans don't 
understand irony. They can be pretty oblique when it come to sarcasms 
too, for that matter.

regards
  Steve
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