Alanis Morisette to the White Courtesy Phone : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Alanis Morisette to the White Courtesy Phone

Posted on: April 3, 2008 9:09 AM, by Ed Brayton

The University of Texas, San Antonio appointed a student committee to write an honor code prohibiting plagiarism at the university. The committee decides instead to just copy the honor code from BYU. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

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Except that Morisette's use of 'ironic' in her lame song was completely wrong. Here its appropriate.

Posted by: yoshi | April 3, 2008 9:56 AM

Yeah her song is more a "series of bad bummers" than irony.

Valparaiso University (where my wife teaches) has an honor code. Because of it my wife is not supposed to be in the room while her students are taking tests. Her presence in the room says that she does not trust the code. So she goes to her office and catches up on grading.

Posted by: Rev. AJB | April 3, 2008 10:23 AM

Although it is ironic that someone would write a song about irony without knowing what the word means.

Posted by: wikinite | April 3, 2008 10:48 AM

(My attempt at being Weird Al, circa 1996):

Mr. Unibomber,
Lived in a shack.
He sent his letter bombs,
No one wrote him back.

Till one fine day,
Came the FBI.
Cause he hurt his brother's feelings,
yeah, he made him cry.

And isn't it psychotic, don't you drink?

It's like brains,
on your wedding cake.
A vampire hunt,
without a wooden stake.
The mind control drugs,
that you just didn't take.
So why don't you pull the trigger?

Posted by: Jason Failes | April 3, 2008 11:00 AM

A little too ironic. I really do think.

Posted by: Steve Matheson | April 3, 2008 11:11 AM

A little too ironic. I really do think.

Although it is ironic that someone would write a song about irony without knowing what the word means.

Posted by: J-Dog | April 3, 2008 11:36 AM

You know, I've actually heard it rumored that it was completely intentional: the irony of the song being that none of the examples were actually ironic, but merely unfortunate.

Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | April 3, 2008 11:54 AM

Her presence in the room says that she does not trust the code.

As opposed to being readily available in case the students have questions?

Speaking as an academic, the utter Onanism of academic administration never fails to astonish me.

Posted by: NJ | April 3, 2008 12:14 PM

@wikinite and J-Dog:

Morisette does know the meaning of the word ironic.

You seem to be assuming that she is using it in the sense of "verbal irony", but in fact she is using it in the sense of "tragic/situational irony". So don't keep blaming her for your own limited command of the English language ;-)

(Full disclosure: I think Alanis Morisette rocks big time.)

Posted by: Gregory Earl | April 3, 2008 2:05 PM

No I disagree - but she was close...
"Like rain on your wedding day" - Unfortunate
If his/her job was to predict the weather - ironic
"Like a traffic jam if you're already late" - Unfortunate
If you were the town planner of that particular city - Ironic
"Like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife." - Stupid - who has 10,00 spoons?
Realizing a spoon would have done the original job that you were searching for the knife to do - Ironic
I could go on....

Posted by: Dave | April 3, 2008 10:00 PM

You know it's so hard to find really nice and clear examples of irony (as opposed to the variety of other abstract concepts that can be used), but I think you've hit that one right on the head. As for Alanis... while the situations in the song as merely coincidences, the song itself is actually akin to irony.

Posted by: Dreamer | April 5, 2008 9:12 AM