In 1993, David Foster Wallace published an essay, titled “E Unibus Pluram,” in which he attempted to diagnose what he saw as the malaise of modern American culture. In the essay, Wallace describes ...

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 it ...

Taking its name from the Greek eironeia (dissimulation), irony consists of purporting a meaning of an utterance or a situation that is different, often opposite, to the literal one. Maike Oergel, ...

Well, isn’t this ironic? Just when we need an ironic sensibility to remain cleareyed in dangerous times, we’re told irony is obsolete. And this from some people who’ve made it their business to peddle ...

Before Sept. 11 people laughed at Bill Clinton when he asked what the definition of ‘is’ is and it was the coolly detached age of irony. Now people ask what the definition of irony is and it is just ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. A father and daughter were deep in discussion over breakfast at a diner. “That’s not irony, that’s sarcasm,” the father ...

With newspapers in Britain forecasting the potential catastrophe of a “no deal” Brexit—chaos at the borders, empty shelves in the supermarkets, the pound through the floor—Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of ...