"Pardon me, I was using the subjunctive instead of the past tense. Yes, we're way past tents. We're living in bungalows now."
-Captain Jeffery T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx), Animal Crackers, explaining English grammar to Mrs. Whitehead (Margaret Irving) (1929).
The above quote has nothing to do with the topic of my post. I just haven't been able to work it in anywhere and it needs to be on this site. So, there it is.
No, today is a friendly reminder about irony.
Remember that angry Canadian who sang about everything being ironic, don'tcha think?
Here are some lines:
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic... don'tcha think?
No, no, and way no. "Isn't It Unfortunate?" would be a swell title. "Doesn't That Just Suck," perhaps. But not ironic. It's like meeting the man of my dreams, and he's narcoleptic, perhaps. It's like a no-smoking sign in front of Phillip Morris headquarters, sure.
Now, I'm sure I'm a late comer to this party. The song's 10 years old. But a fellow by the name of 50 Cent has a new song called "Candy Shop," which seems to be about searching for a really good lollipop, in which he posits:
"Isn't it ironic how erotic it is to watch 'em in thongs?"
What?!? Where is the irony here? As far as I can tell, the "'em" refers to women (some lyrics have it as "you"). From what I hear, women in thongs is still considered fairly erotic. Perhaps he means to say that the thong is as or more erotic than nothing at all. But this is not irony. "Isn't it ironic how erotic it is to watch 'em in parkas," maybe. Perhaps some research is needed here, but to say that a thong is not erotic flies in the face of modern troubadour Sisqo:
I think to sing it again
She had dumps like a truck truck truck
Thighs like what what what
All night long
Let me see that thong
So, finally, I come to this conclusion, the only one that makes sense:
By commenting on the erotic irony of thongs, Mr. Cent is actually making a post-modern joke, winking at us and asking: "Isn't it ironic how lacking in irony this is"?
Well played, Mr. Cent. Well played, indeed.
3 comments:
Um, he's saying that women are erotic to watch in thongs. Not that they're not. So you're the one who's got it twisted.
you missed part of the lyrics, right after that he says"have me thinkin about that ass after im gone"
still not ironic but i think that's what he meant
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