Adapted from "Irony and Sarcasm" by Roger Kreuz (MIT Press, 2020). Reprinted with permission from MIT Press. In February 1996, Alanis Morissette released the fourth single from “Jagged Little Pill,” ...

Like simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole, irony is a very useful figure of speech. Writers and other creative workers regularly make use of it, including comedians. It can, however, also ...

Have you ever found yourself about to say, “that’s ironic,” only to stop yourself – unsure whether you were using the word correctly? If you’re like most people, you probably know irony when you see ...

I recently celebrated the 18th anniversary of writing silly things for the amusement of people. It’s been fun and I appreciate all the compliments I’ve gotten. I don’t know if they were deserved, but ...

Everyone knows that Americans don't understand irony. Soon after moving to England from the U.S., I discovered that my country was universally assumed to be an irony-free zone. I was at a dinner party ...

In 2012, Christy Wampole, a professor of French and Italian at Princeton, sparked a firestorm of debate with her article in The New York Times titled “How to Live Without Irony.” Claiming irony the ...

Successful couples are not couples who never fight or are on everything at every moment. Often, couples who never fight have concealed issues or have made a decision, privately or not, that there is ...