04.26.07
Posted in Necessary at 4:30 pm by Vishy
This is the first post in a new category–Necessary–that I was forced to create when I saw MIT’s Kaavya-equivalent in the news:
Marilee Jones, MIT’s dean of admissions who has spoken out nationally against the craze over beefing up teens’ resumes, has resigned after 28 years at the school for misrepresenting her academic degrees, university officials said today.
Sic transit gloria mundi. And so too passes she, the Steve Jobs of college admissions, my mom away from mom. I was an alumnus-interviewer in the MIT admissions cycle that just concluded. Judging from the enthusiastic responses of parents of MIT applicants I’ve seen, I don’t think her work will go down unnoticed. Back to the point of this entry though, there’s no use of the word ironically above, when it really deserves to be used. I’ll just hope the author thought the irony was too juicy to call out.
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03.12.07
Posted in Incorrect at 9:45 am by Vishy
From JTA:
[Jordan] shares borders with Iraq, an anarchic state that has become a battlefield for terrorists and Islamic extremists; Syria, an illicit arms trafficker and close ally of Iran; and Israel, the regional pariah whose Palestinian problem is an omnipresent threat to Jordanian stability. The country has an estimated 25 percent unemployment rate, no oil wealth and friends in the West the rest of its neighbors love to hate.
Perhaps ironically, these perils are precisely what make Jordan’s relationship with Israel so indispensable.
So, Jordan appears to be unfortunately placed for a number of reasons. Given the setup of its perilous situation in the article, there’s no surprise Jordan is friendly with Israel — its other neighbors dislike its close ties to the West. The closeness of its relationship with Israel is not so much ironic as driven by necessity.
Let’s assume for a moment that the article does attempt to set up an ironic situation. Even if the setup is some lame allusion to the conflict between Arabs and Jews, the civilizational nature of this conflict is often unduly hyped, for many Arab countries want nothing to do with Palestinian refugees, their Arab brethren. With lack of support from the article and from reality, any irony just falls flat. No wonder then that even the author is unsure of the irony, seeing as how he prefaces the i-word with a perhaps.
I might have used surprisingly in place of ironically, but given the ground realities put forth by the article, I fail to see the surprising part. So I’d just drop the perhaps and use unsurprisingly.
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03.10.07
Posted in Unnecessary at 9:57 pm by Vishy
From UPI:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration remain among the least trusted of all U.S. agencies, a new survey finds.
Indeed, the DHS came in dead last of all 74 federal agencies that the survey respondents were asked about.
Ironically, the survey showed the TSA and the DHS got slightly higher trust figures from the even lower ones they received last year.
DHS and TSA were perceived as untrustworthy last year but this year they’re more trustworthy. That’s a good thing; the general public thinks they’re mucking up less. I totally fail to see what the irony is though. This is a prime example of the abuse of the i-word — there is not even a half-assed attempt at setting up the irony because the word is entirely superfluous.
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01.04.07
Posted in Incorrect at 5:26 pm by Vishy
From the North Jersey Media Group:
Trans fat is created by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil — hydrogenation — to make the oil more solid and less likely to spoil…Ironically, many big fast-food companies became dependent on hydrogenated oil a decade and a half ago because they were pressured by health groups to do something about saturated fat. At the time, trans fats were considered a healthy alternative to animal fats and lard because they are unsaturated and made mainly from plant oils.
That trans-fats are facing the same fate as what replaced to begin with could be perhaps noteworthy or amusing, but ironic it is not. The situation might be labeled ironic if the ban on trans-fats came just as popular demand for them reached an all-time high. The noticeable changes in the popular perception of trans-fats is merely an interesting aside. In place of ironically, “As it turns out”, “Interestingly” or “Amusingly” might have been more appropriate.
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12.06.06
Posted in Correct at 8:49 pm by Vishy
From United Press International:
The couple got together during the summer of 2005, ironically while filming “The Break-Up.”
Ironically here is correct, but the whole situation is just too funny to pass up. Aniston and Vaughn start a relationship while filming a movie about a break-up (oh the irony). After a while, they break up in real life, and in so doing, create an example of life imitating art. I’ve always thought life imitating art is in itself a subtle irony. After all, the Fourth Wall, however invisible, is still a wall.
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12.01.06
Posted in Incorrect at 2:19 pm by Vishy
An example so incorrect it’s juicy. From Baptist Press:
Ironically, production of “The Nativity Story” took about as long as the period of time the movie portrays — from just before Christ’s immaculate conception to just after His miraculous birth.
If making a movie about a pregnancy took only as long as a pregnancy in real life, that’s quite impressive. If a movie conceived (no pun intended) around a pregnancy, like this one or Nine Months, took, say, a year and a half from start to finish, you might somewhat legitimately call the situation ironic. The Nativity Story taking nine months, just like a pregnancy, conjures up as much irony as the fizzling out of a damp squib, or the boredom of watching paint dry.
Perhaps the author should have used “Amazingly” or “Surprisingly” instead.
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11.22.06
Posted in Incorrect, Unnecessary at 2:52 pm by Vishy
From The Age, an Australian newspaper:
Death is a mystery that hasn’t been resolved and never will be. It’s the only event in our lives that is certain and inevitable and ironically we have no control over it.
Is it really ironic that we have no control over something that is certain and inevitable? That would be like saying, “The green traffic light comes on after the red traffic light. This light change is certain and inevitable and ironically we have no control over it.”
The use of ironically here is unnecessary and incorrect. Instead of ‘and ironically’, a simple ‘but’ would have done.
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11.08.06
Posted in Correct at 10:02 pm by Vishy
From The Herald Tribune:
On Tuesday, Florida supported … [Amendment 3], which requires 60 percent of voters to approve an amendment for it to pass. Currently it takes a simple majority.
Ironically, Amendment 3 itself wouldn’t have passed under its rules: it received 58 percent support.
This is a correct use of the word ironically, because the measure would not have passed had it already been in effect.
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Posted in Incorrect at 9:25 pm by Vishy
Via The Boston Globe:
“Ironically, Bush himself is largely responsible for making the midterm elections a referendum on his policies.”
There is nothing ironic about this situation. A midterm election, especially in the 6th year of a president’s term, is almost by definition a referendum on the ruling party. Bush would be making it a referendum on his policies regardless. There is no mention in the surrounding context about his not wanting to make this election a referendum about his policies. If there was such a mention, the ‘ironically’ might have been a little more justified.
The writer was probably looking for interestingly instead.
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