yeah playing with the three types of irony was extremely popular in early 1700s britlit. early american lit tried to distinguish itself from britlit by focusing less on irony and more on allegory and symbolism. however by the late 1800s american lit came to emphasize irony almost as hard as the previous century's britlit had, though i think our only author to really do as much verbal irony (saying one thing, meaning another) as that era of britlit was F Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.

i'm curious now how Australian literature plays with irony. if there's an absence of verbal irony, is there more literary irony (the consequences of the action are tied comically to the action) and dramatic irony (the audience knows things the characters don't)? and did the divergence happen because our war of independence resulted in the brits no longer using our southern colonies as a penal colony just as they were getting bored of this?

or were early Australians more likely to reject this device because they felt it was a signifier of their oppressors?

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

My understanding, from how people use it here is that irony is a situation which is a contrast between the expected/intended and actual outcome.

It's ironic when a fire station burns down

This definition is truly upsetting: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony

Americans, no. Bad Americans.

This definition is correct (until we come up with a good substitute, FFS America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Glad Wikipedia agrees with me on this one haha We'll at least the introductory definition.

Edit: to answer your question. I dunno. I just think this form of "ironic" just didn't take off in Australia.

Mostly because we already have words for what Americans use it for. And don't have words to replace irony.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯