On 10/10/06, Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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.
is that '....in America' meant to be an addendum to what I said, as in this is the situation in America and not elsewhere? If so I should probably point out that I am writing from Denmark and was thinking specifically of a situation where a dane told me they were being 'ironic' (when what they meant, obviously, was that they were being ironical), when I asked what they meant by that they said "saying the opposite of what I mean" I responded: "so, in other words, what you mean by irony is 'sarcasm'" She responded "yes, that's what it means" She had a degree in communications. I also know a few number of brits. The quality of their wit is not as yet so rarified that I must strain after its meaning. Cheers, Bryan Rasmussen -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
