Alanis Morisette- "Ironic", or should it be called "Misfortune"?
 

If you have heard the song, have you noticed that most of the occurences she mentions aren't 'ironic', but rather 'misfortunate'?

ironic- an event or result that is the opposite of what is expected.
misfortune- ill luck, chance, fate.

death row pardon, ten minutes too late=misfortune
rain on your wedding day=misfortune
free ride when your already late=misfortune
traffic jam when your alaready late=misfortune
10,000 spoons when all you need a knife=misfortune
meeting the man of your dreams, then meething his beautiful wife=misfortune
no smoking sign on cigarette break=ironic
good advice that you just didn't take=ironic

I guess you can see my reasons for why the song should be entitled "Misfortune" instead of "Ironic". The occurences aren't the opposite of what is expected, but rather just ill fate.

"Isn't it misfortunate
Don't you think?"

Doesn't have the same ring.

Welcome to 1995, you fucking asshole

Those all sound ironic to me.

lol tioe

I didn't laugh. :?:

It's symbolism, you see it's misfortunate if you take it at face value. But if you go to the symbolism of each event then it is ironic.

I'm sure some comedian has had this in his repertoire.

Many comedians probably do.

Her new song isn't any better than this one.

Ed Byrne made many a TV appearance off the back of it. Shame he was about as funny as bowel cancer.

His material was almost as shite as the song itself.

Bizarrely he looked like Alanis Morrissette.

I think any strung out Canadian looks either like Alanis Morrissette or Bryan Adams.

Several do. Like 50 TV shwos have poked fun at it. It's a populary irony in and of itself. Or it was...A decade ago. ;)

death row pardon, ten minutes too late = Bit of a bugger, but what do you care? You're dead.
rain on your wedding day = Whoop de fucking do, it's raining, I wouldn't care
free ride when your already late = would make you less late than walking.
traffic jam when your already late = You should've left earlier, chances are there's usually traffic jams at that time.
10,000 spoons when all you need a knife = Fucking stupid, why the hell would you have 10,000 spoons?
meeting the man of your dreams, then meeting his beautiful wife = 1) He's a dick for leading you on, or 2) You're judging him from looks alone and you're a shallow person
No smoking sign on cigarette break = Stupid. What would be the point of producing a cigarette?
good advice that you just didn't take = Stupid. If you knew it was good advice, and you didn't take it then you're an idiot.

Just pointing that out

That's why he said lol about himself you fucking asshole

lol wtf

I remember this topic... like four years ago, when Moonax brought it up.

Unfortunate.

And Ed Byrne is STILL using that routine, several years later. He really is a dickhead.

LOL I remember Ed Byrne doing that shit

Comedy gold there

Actually this was first brought up to my atention from my 8th grade English teacher who was trying to illustrate examples of irony. In the case she used, my teacher used the song to show how some of the verses aren't necessarily ironic, but rather misfortune.

^^Well, it was an interesting topic in class, especially because she used an example everyone was familiar with.

You have a weaker grasp of the facts than George W Bush has of the english language.

Never mind, call someone a Nazi and post a topic about yourself and I'm sure you'll feel better.

And you would know. The difference between you and GW in terms of language skills is that one understands that he's a retard, and the other hides behind misuse of big words and latin.

Mmmmmm...Moonaxsonglow.mp3...

Given your sentence construction in that last post it is highly ironic for you to criticise my linguistic skills.

The skills that enable me to recognise something as being ironic. Skills relating to the use of language that you obviously lack.