full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Christopher Warner: Situational irony The opposite of what you think

Unscramble the Blue Letters

and face-plants into the cake. Your firned doubles over with laughter and says, "It's so ridiculous! So ironic!" Well, quick, what do you do? Do you laugh along with the lgauh track and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go? Or, do you throw caution to the wind and explain the true maneing of irony? If you're me, you choose the latter. Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood. We tend to throw out that term whenever we see something funny or coincidental. And while many examples of true irony can be funny, that is not the driving factor of being ironic. A situation is only ironic if what happens is the exact opposite of what was expected. If you expect A, but get B, then you have irony. Let's take the slap-stick cake situation as an example. When someone walks in precariously balancing something that shouldn't be caerrid alone, trips, falls, and makes a mess, it is funny, but it's not ironic. In fact, you probably expect someone who is single-handedly carrying a huge cake to trip. When he does, reality aginls with expectations, and so that is not irony. But what if the sassy sidekick walked in wearing a gold meadl that he'd won at the cake walking event at the attnlaa Olympics in 1996? What if that sidekick was a professional cake carrier? Then, maybe there would have been a rlaeobanse expectation that he would have been more skilled when crynairg a ridiculously large cake. Then, when that reasonable expectation was not met by the tripping siikdcek, iorny would have been exemplified. Another example. A snoeir citizen texting and blnggiog. The common and reasonable expectation of more mature men and women is that they don't like or know technology, that they have a hard time tnriung on a computer, or that they have the old brick cell phones from the 1980s. One should not expect them to be connected, high-tech, or savvy enough to text or to be blogging, which must seem like some sort of newfangled thing that "back in my day," they never had. So when Granny pulls out her smart phone to post pictures of her dentures or her grandkids, irony esneus. Reasonable expectations of the sutaiiotn are not met. That is irony. So while the cake dropper might not be ironic, there are all kinds of situations in life that are. Go out, and find those true eapxmels of irony.

Open Cloze

and face-plants into the cake. Your ______ doubles over with laughter and says, "It's so ridiculous! So ironic!" Well, quick, what do you do? Do you laugh along with the _____ track and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go? Or, do you throw caution to the wind and explain the true _______ of irony? If you're me, you choose the latter. Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood. We tend to throw out that term whenever we see something funny or coincidental. And while many examples of true irony can be funny, that is not the driving factor of being ironic. A situation is only ironic if what happens is the exact opposite of what was expected. If you expect A, but get B, then you have irony. Let's take the slap-stick cake situation as an example. When someone walks in precariously balancing something that shouldn't be _______ alone, trips, falls, and makes a mess, it is funny, but it's not ironic. In fact, you probably expect someone who is single-handedly carrying a huge cake to trip. When he does, reality ______ with expectations, and so that is not irony. But what if the sassy sidekick walked in wearing a gold _____ that he'd won at the cake walking event at the _______ Olympics in 1996? What if that sidekick was a professional cake carrier? Then, maybe there would have been a __________ expectation that he would have been more skilled when ________ a ridiculously large cake. Then, when that reasonable expectation was not met by the tripping ________, _____ would have been exemplified. Another example. A ______ citizen texting and ________. The common and reasonable expectation of more mature men and women is that they don't like or know technology, that they have a hard time _______ on a computer, or that they have the old brick cell phones from the 1980s. One should not expect them to be connected, high-tech, or savvy enough to text or to be blogging, which must seem like some sort of newfangled thing that "back in my day," they never had. So when Granny pulls out her smart phone to post pictures of her dentures or her grandkids, irony ______. Reasonable expectations of the _________ are not met. That is irony. So while the cake dropper might not be ironic, there are all kinds of situations in life that are. Go out, and find those true ________ of irony.

Solution

  1. meaning
  2. atlanta
  3. medal
  4. examples
  5. ensues
  6. carrying
  7. aligns
  8. reasonable
  9. senior
  10. situation
  11. blogging
  12. laugh
  13. sidekick
  14. friend
  15. turning
  16. carried
  17. irony

Original Text

and face-plants into the cake. Your friend doubles over with laughter and says, "It's so ridiculous! So ironic!" Well, quick, what do you do? Do you laugh along with the laugh track and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go? Or, do you throw caution to the wind and explain the true meaning of irony? If you're me, you choose the latter. Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood. We tend to throw out that term whenever we see something funny or coincidental. And while many examples of true irony can be funny, that is not the driving factor of being ironic. A situation is only ironic if what happens is the exact opposite of what was expected. If you expect A, but get B, then you have irony. Let's take the slap-stick cake situation as an example. When someone walks in precariously balancing something that shouldn't be carried alone, trips, falls, and makes a mess, it is funny, but it's not ironic. In fact, you probably expect someone who is single-handedly carrying a huge cake to trip. When he does, reality aligns with expectations, and so that is not irony. But what if the sassy sidekick walked in wearing a gold medal that he'd won at the cake walking event at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996? What if that sidekick was a professional cake carrier? Then, maybe there would have been a reasonable expectation that he would have been more skilled when carrying a ridiculously large cake. Then, when that reasonable expectation was not met by the tripping sidekick, irony would have been exemplified. Another example. A senior citizen texting and blogging. The common and reasonable expectation of more mature men and women is that they don't like or know technology, that they have a hard time turning on a computer, or that they have the old brick cell phones from the 1980s. One should not expect them to be connected, high-tech, or savvy enough to text or to be blogging, which must seem like some sort of newfangled thing that "back in my day," they never had. So when Granny pulls out her smart phone to post pictures of her dentures or her grandkids, irony ensues. Reasonable expectations of the situation are not met. That is irony. So while the cake dropper might not be ironic, there are all kinds of situations in life that are. Go out, and find those true examples of irony.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
reasonable expectation 3
sassy sidekick 2

Important Words

  1. aligns
  2. atlanta
  3. balancing
  4. blogging
  5. brick
  6. cake
  7. carried
  8. carrier
  9. carrying
  10. caution
  11. cell
  12. choose
  13. citizen
  14. coincidental
  15. common
  16. completely
  17. computer
  18. connected
  19. day
  20. dentures
  21. doubles
  22. driving
  23. dropper
  24. ensues
  25. event
  26. exact
  27. examples
  28. exemplified
  29. expect
  30. expectation
  31. expectations
  32. expected
  33. explain
  34. fact
  35. factor
  36. falls
  37. find
  38. friend
  39. funny
  40. gold
  41. grandkids
  42. granny
  43. grievous
  44. hard
  45. huge
  46. ironic
  47. irony
  48. kinds
  49. large
  50. laugh
  51. laughter
  52. life
  53. mature
  54. meaning
  55. medal
  56. men
  57. mess
  58. met
  59. misinterpretation
  60. misunderstood
  61. newfangled
  62. olympics
  63. phone
  64. phones
  65. pictures
  66. post
  67. precariously
  68. professional
  69. pulls
  70. quick
  71. reality
  72. reasonable
  73. ridiculously
  74. sassy
  75. savvy
  76. senior
  77. sidekick
  78. situation
  79. situations
  80. skilled
  81. smart
  82. sort
  83. technology
  84. tend
  85. term
  86. text
  87. texting
  88. throw
  89. time
  90. track
  91. trip
  92. tripping
  93. trips
  94. true
  95. turning
  96. walked
  97. walking
  98. walks
  99. wearing
  100. wind
  101. women
  102. won