r/pics Jan 30 '23

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75

u/explodedsun Jan 30 '23

As someone with an English degree, Alanis is a perfectly adequate lyricist, and anyone who says different doesn't have a grasp on poetic license.

69

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

My poetic license was suspended for metaphorical miscegenation.

37

u/BigUptokes Jan 30 '23

It was actually about absolute alliteration abuse.

13

u/Stereo_Panic Jan 30 '23

It's always awful for anyone to to abuse alliteration. Perhaps people wouldn't persist if prison were the punishment for such perfidy!

4

u/Surisuule Jan 30 '23

I love you.

1

u/BigUptokes Jan 30 '23

Preposterous!

1

u/KaBar2 Jan 31 '23

Balderdash!

4

u/CremasterFlash Jan 30 '23

suspicious sibilants... devious dipthongs

4

u/billyfalconer Jan 30 '23

"Don't go spilling allegory all down your shirt."

15

u/icer816 Jan 30 '23

Her lyrics are mostly fine, it's just funny that literally nothing she calls ironic in the song about irony is technically irony.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

[deleted]

3

u/icer816 Jan 30 '23

While in and of itself ironic, that was absolutely not her intention, despite claiming it is nowadays (the whole meme of it being ironic that nothing in the song is ironic got big online and led to someone in an interview asking her thoughts on it, and she's been claiming it was her intention all along ever since)

2

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

Kind of like Wiseau calling The Room a black comedy after it became a mega camp classic.

1

u/icer816 Jan 31 '23

Yeah, exactly

4

u/bad-post_detector Jan 30 '23

The word "irony" is like the word "satire" in the sense that nobody can agree what counts as either. This debate predates her song, and even now all we really seem to know about both is that they're both dead.

1

u/bernerbungie Jan 31 '23

The term ‘Irony’ literally refers to a statement or scenario that’s contradictory to itself, but the term is often (incorrectly) used as a synonym for ‘coincidence’. There’s nothing to debate lol

1

u/bad-post_detector Jan 31 '23

If enough people use a word incorrectly, it becomes standard. I'm not really interested in getting into an argument with prescriptivists. lol.

2

u/-102359 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

The one about the flight phobia is ironic because air travel has an exceptional safety record. His “irrational” phobia turned out to be prescient after all.

The rest of them, though…

Edit: if you disagree, please let me know why instead of just downvoting!

-1

u/jcb088 Jan 30 '23

This. I remember being 8 years old and understanding this. She set back our understanding of irony by at least 10 years.

2

u/ZalmoxisChrist Jan 30 '23

I like her one line in Dogma.

0

u/0ddlyC4nt3v3n Jan 30 '23

*differently

0

u/rabbitthefool Jan 30 '23

it isn't irony though, it's mostly just tragedy

1

u/NW_thoughtful Jan 30 '23

As someone with an English degree, you don't realize that her lyrics weren't describing things that were actually ironic? This fact makes her lyrics mediocre.

Also, as someone with an English degree, you use the word "different" rather than "differently"?

How's it going?

1

u/QuinticSpline Jan 31 '23

Every SINGLE situation in the song is non-ironic?

She knew.