full transcript

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

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Picture this: your feirnd and you are watching a sitcom and a sassy scdkieik walks into a room, carrying a four-tiered wedding cake. He trips, falls,

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 luagh along with the laugh track and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go? Or, do you throw caution to the wind and epxailn the true manneig of irony? If you're me, you choose the latter. Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood. We tend to torhw out that term whenever we see something fnuny 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 iinroc if what happens is the excat 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 bnacinalg something that shouldn't be carried alone, tpirs, falls, and makes a mess, it is funny, but it's not ironic. In fact, you probably expect someone who is single-handedly cayirnrg a huge cake to trip. When he does, reality aligns with expectations, and so that is not irony. But what if the sassy sidekick weakld 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 cteiizn texting and bigolngg. 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 brcik 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 pluls out her smart pohne to post priuctes of her detuenrs or her grandkids, irony ensues. Reasonable ecioeapttnxs 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 irnoy.

Open Cloze


Picture this: your ______ and you are watching a sitcom and a sassy ________ walks into a room, carrying a four-tiered wedding cake. He trips, falls,

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 _____ along with the laugh track and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go? Or, do you throw caution to the wind and _______ the true _______ of irony? If you're me, you choose the latter. Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood. We tend to _____ out that term whenever we see something _____ 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 ______ if what happens is the _____ 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 _________ something that shouldn't be carried alone, _____, falls, and makes a mess, it is funny, but it's not ironic. In fact, you probably expect someone who is single-handedly ________ a huge cake to trip. When he does, reality aligns with expectations, and so that is not irony. But what if the sassy sidekick ______ 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 _______ 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 turning on a computer, or that they have the old _____ 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 _____ out her smart _____ to post ________ of her ________ or her grandkids, irony ensues. Reasonable ____________ 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 _____.

Solution


  1. dentures
  2. brick
  3. ironic
  4. balancing
  5. expectations
  6. walked
  7. blogging
  8. carrying
  9. friend
  10. pictures
  11. phone
  12. throw
  13. meaning
  14. irony
  15. laugh
  16. exact
  17. pulls
  18. citizen
  19. funny
  20. trips
  21. explain
  22. sidekick

Original Text


Picture this: your friend and you are watching a sitcom and a sassy sidekick walks into a room, carrying a four-tiered wedding cake. He trips, falls,

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. picture
  66. pictures
  67. post
  68. precariously
  69. professional
  70. pulls
  71. quick
  72. reality
  73. reasonable
  74. ridiculously
  75. room
  76. sassy
  77. savvy
  78. senior
  79. sidekick
  80. sitcom
  81. situation
  82. situations
  83. skilled
  84. smart
  85. sort
  86. technology
  87. tend
  88. term
  89. text
  90. texting
  91. throw
  92. time
  93. track
  94. trip
  95. tripping
  96. trips
  97. true
  98. turning
  99. walked
  100. walking
  101. walks
  102. watching
  103. wearing
  104. wedding
  105. wind
  106. women
  107. won