How much 'fan mail' do you think Alanis Morissette gets kindly informing her that 'no, it isn't actually ironic'?

The guy in the airplane let his flight insurance lapse that day.

i think the airplane one is ironic.

i had to look up the song

“It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay” Not ironic, unless you spent a lot on the wine..

@casheroo or it’s winter in Wisconsin where’d that damned fly come from?!

What about the line about a death row pardon two minutes too late? THATS TOTALLY IRONIC!! I mean its not as ironic as a black fly in my Chardonay but c’mon, what could be more ironic than THAT?!

sarcasm

The airplane one is indeed the closest to being actually ironic. I still think it falls short of the mark because nothing about the airplane made it impervious to crashing.

This sums up the situations nicely… and is quite comical.

According to Dictionary.com her meaning is correct as well. (2nd defintion)

@tinyfaery Her definition of irony is actually just ‘things that suck’ or ‘very poor timing’. But not everyone has to agree with me on this, of course.

The song is actually ‘meta-ironic’: it’s a song about irony that does not contain any/much irony. And meta-irony is very hip. She should be the hipsters’ God.

She’s gotten such a load of crap for this that I don’t think she deserves. I think any of them can be considered ironic if you look at it in a certain way. Ex: A black fly in chardonnay could be ironic because the fly is black and the wine is white. A death row pardon 2 minutes too late is ironic because a pardon has essentially been given to a dead man.

“It’s a traffic jam when you’re already late ”
This line is not ironic, it is something that happens everyday…

English is a living language. I think you are all being very prescriptive in your lexicographical pursuits. As long as you can understand what she means, and she gives so many examples it is hard not to, I think she deserves a break.

Go descriptive dictionaries, go! Fly and be descriptive!