Comments on: Un-interviewed

By: Ned

Ned — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:05:31 +0000

Phil knows that he should be flattered to be quoted on another’s website. Phil feels emotionally hesitant that his quote is being used by someone else. (I would call these opposite emotions, so his emotional response seems ironic to me.)

I won’t discuss the cosmic irony usage at the end of the post.

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:56:39 +0000

> Is that ironic?

No.

By: shane

shane — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:19:22 +0000

Nathan reminds me of someone else I read the other day complaining that the word decimated had been used when the actual loss was 60 or 70% and not 10%. I had no problem with how the word was used but the first thought I had about the complainer was “idiot”. Is that ironic?

Language evolves and changes. Some changes are annoying but that is part and parcel of using a living language. Oh crap, I’m an idiot. Language isn’t a alive in a literal sense of course…

Look up the etymology of the word “nice”. 700 years ago it meant stupid, foolish & senseless. While you’re at it look up hyperbole and metaphor and for that matter litotes. Sorry, by “look up” I meant open a dictionary and search for the words I mentioned.

By: Juan

Juan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:43:54 +0000

I don’t understand what the fuss is about. Even if Phil is misusing a word and even if he does it all the time. Nathan if you feel THAT bad about the use of a word on a website like this one then you may have more important issues to deal with first.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:36:03 +0000

Regarding irony, see the controversy section here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

I don’t know why people focus on Alanis Morrissette’s use of “ironic”. I mean, she can’t even say “figures” correctly. (”It figgers.”)

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:34:05 +0000

Cathy: “Sex” vs “gender” never made any interesting or useful distinction, and mixing them up just tells us about the prudery of the speaker. “They” used for “he/she” fills in for an awkward gap in English vocabulary. I’m perfectly happy when newspapers assert that pterosaurs and plesiosaurs are dinosaurs, because who cares? “Dinosaur” meaning “saurischian, ornithischian, or one of a few allied genera but not any of the sister clades” makes no useful distinction.

When somebody insists they’re “literally beating my head against the wall” while just standing there, I know they’re an idiot. When somebody says their rent is going up exponentially, I know it’s not, and that they’re an idiot. When somebody says something is ironic and it’s manifestly not, it tells me the same thing. “Literally” has an interesting and useful meaning. “Exponentially” has an interesting and mathematically precise meaning. “Ironic” has an interesting and useful meaning. People who use them for random emphasis damage English, and are fundamentally no different from people who insist that evolution and whether the sun goes around the earth are just matters of opinion.

What will Phil say when something happens that actually *is* ironic? “Literally ironic”? Sorry, that doesn’t work either.

By: Ken B

Ken B — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:39:54 +0000

Nathan Meyers:

Please re-read the original quote in context, as well as Buzz’s reply to you. Nowhere does Phil say it was ironic that he was quoted. Rather, he said it was ironic that he felt “funny” about being quoted, when he quotes others all the time.

Perhaps you should tell us why “ironic” is incorrectly used. What dictionary did you “look it up” in, and what definition is given there that makes Phil’s use “wrong”?

And, by “we”, I’m sure Phil means “people”. While you and I in particular did not “do this”, we, as a species, are capable of doing such things, as shown by members of this species who actually did “do this”.

(Phil should probably jump in here to make clarify, in case Buzz and I are wrong.)