2

I was reading a piece by a blogger who was reviewing some material from a particular industry. The author at a few points in the article made the point that the professionals in the topic industry "weren't trying" and were "making a poor effort" in their chosen field. Unfortunately, the author for the piece littered the article with grammatical mistakes (I stopped counting at 30 in a single post).

Seeing as how these types of mistakes could show that the author was "making a poor effort" I was thinking this could be described as an example of irony but the definitions I found from MW would seem to preclude that.

I felt it was important to get the right description since I am making a commentary about the author's lack of attention to basic English grammar. ;)

Improve this question
2
  • 2
    An example of Muphry's law
    – Martin Smith
    Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 12:01
  • Voting to close because OP's example is ironic. Making it "general reference".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 23:44

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
10

Definition 3a1 on the page you link to, "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result", seems to fit: the expected output of someone who complains about poor effort shows signs of good effort.

Improve this answer
3
  • you mean "shows signs of poor effort"?
    – kdmurray
    Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 7:26
  • 2
    @kdmurray, no, I meant what I wrote, I think. The expected output of someone who complains of poor effort shows signs of good effort; that expectation was not fulfilled.
    – msh210
    Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 7:30
  • 2
    right. I really shouldn't do this at 23:30. :P That's probably why the definition didn't seem to fit when I read it on the website.
    – kdmurray
    Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 7:33
1

My favorite definition of irony: poetic injustice.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .