The exoneration of Alanis Morissette
Flavors of entanglement
Party people!! I’m looking for a place to crash in New York starting March 31!
…….Big Apple here I come???
In high school, my English teacher gave us some advice which I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Beware, he explained: the lyrics to Alanis Morissette’s megahit “Ironic” are a catalogue of error. Circumstances like “rain on your wedding day” and, infamously, “ten thousand spoons / when all you need is a knife” are not, in fact, ironic. (Meanwhile, the corruption of her songwriting by payola from the silverware industry, aka Big Spoon, remains uninvestigated.)
For a quarter of a century, whenever I’ve heard the chorus—“Isn’t it ironic?”—I’ve thought, “Literally, Alanis—is it? I feel like you’re just describing… coincidence and misfortune. Is that ironic? …Maybe we can put it to a vote. Democracy in Iraq will flourish any day now.”
This teacher, a legend, was right about everything. Except this.
OED:
ironical, adj. 4. Of a situation, event, or outcome: cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations; paradoxical, coincidental; = IRONIC adj. 3.
Alanis sings about a man who finally surmounts his lifelong fear of flying, only to die in the crash of his first and only flight. From the OED’s illustrative quotes:
1930 Pop. Sci. Monthly Aug. 66/2 That he should lose his life in a plane crash the one time when he was not provided with this life-saving device seems…all the more ironical.
Love that sinister ellipsis at the end. I do, I love it!
Don’t ya think?
Next time someone wants to slander Alanis you can say in full confidence: they ought to know better.
(For those keeping track at home: your local public library possibly-to-probably grants remote access to the Oxford English Dictionary. Last week I signed up for a Cincinnati library card online—and was delighted to find myself tucking into the OED minutes later. For free!!)
See you next weekend, dear friends.