Question

what is verbal ans situational irony?

Answer 1

Verbal Irony

You hear verbal irony in conversations all the time. The simple comment, "Oh Great" after something rotten happens is verbal irony. Verbal irony is by far the most accessible, far-reaching, and heavily utilized form of irony (and also of sarcastic humor) because it is its simplest form - it just involves the equation of two people talking to one another (whereas other forms of irony require a "third" party, generally an audience of some sort to interpret that scenarios as ironic). Of course, as commonplace these days as it may be, verbal irony is an art form to many, requiring the most studied and theatrical of deliveries to achieve peak humorous affect and/or poignancy. With verbal irony, timing is everything. If an ironic comment comes too late or too early in a conversation, is spoken without the correct tone or in an inappropriate circumstance, it may be taken as offensive, or simply as confusing. If, for example a person steps in big puddle of water by mistake, and his/her friend smiles kindly, starts to help his friend up and remarks, "well now, don't you have all the luck!" The comment will probably be taken as funny and ironic and the two will laugh the mishap off. If however, the friend scoffs at his wet, fallen friend, laughs, and says "HA LUCKY YOU!" and yells it really loudly and obnoxiously, it may not be as funny. Verbal irony in its essence requires an understanding of circumstance, attitude, and most importantly, timing.


Situational Irony

Situational irony results from recognizing the oddness or unfairness of a given situation, be it positive or negative. Even though a person typically cannot justifiably explain this unfairness logically, the coincidental nature of the situation is still very obvious to those evaluating it. For example, if the president of Microsoft, Bill Gates, were to win a contest whose grand prize was a computer system, the irony would be situational because such a circumstance would appear ridiculous or "funny" for a number of reasons. Bill Gates doesn't need a computer, he runs the world's largest software company, and he's filthy rich, so winning a computer seems silly and "ironic". This list of half-justified reasons for the oddness of the situation could go on and on but on a very basic level of reasoning all these reasons does really adds up. All can be logically rebutted. Bill Gates has just as much chance of winning a contest like that as anyone else who entered. A computer is a great prize to wins, etc etc. The true "oddness" cannot be explained logically, even though everyone would find that particular situation weird, funny, and "ironic". This sense of being "unfair" or "unfortunate" is a trademark of situational irony. The unusual nature of the circumstances are obvious to everyone and yet, they are not wholly clear when you try to explicate them. Typically the justification for situational irony boils down to someone declaring, "Well, it just is!"

Answer 2

oh ok

Answer 3

i got it

Answer 4

glad you understand :)

Answer 5

not sure sorry

Answer 6

@kilroy316 please do not post your question on other people's posts

Answer 7

sorry

Answer 8

@kilroy316 it's cool. I am not an admin, but I wouldn't want you to get in trouble.