Irony

　　What you think it means: Something that is funny.你認(rèn)為單詞的含義是：滑稽的事。

　　What it really means: Contrary to what you are expecting.單詞的真正含義是：事與愿違的。

　　This is a famous one because so many people get this wrong so often. It's also kind of hard to explain, so we’ll use an example. The Titanic was boasted about as being 100% unsinkable and then in 1912 it was sunk anyway. That is what is called cosmic irony. When a starving vegetarian eats a pepperoni pizza, that is what is called situational irony。這是一個(gè)典型的單詞，因?yàn)榻?jīng)常有人用錯(cuò)。解釋起來(lái)可能有點(diǎn)困難，所以我們還是舉例說(shuō)明吧。泰坦尼克號(hào)號(hào)稱(chēng)100%不會(huì)沉沒(méi)，但1912年它還是意外沉沒(méi)了，這就叫“宇宙反諷”。要是某個(gè)餓得不行的素食者忍不住吃了塊香腸披薩，那就叫“情境反諷”。

　　There are other kinds too, such as dramatic irony and Socratic irony. Believe it or not, sarcasm is actually irony. When you say something sarcastically, your tone and your words mean two opposite things. That is ironic. Irony can be funny but not everything funny is irony。當(dāng)然還有其他分類(lèi)，比如“喜劇式反諷”和“蘇格拉底式反諷”。不管你信不信，irony其實(shí)和sarcasm(諷刺)是一個(gè)意思。當(dāng)說(shuō)到某件事很諷刺時(shí)，你的語(yǔ)調(diào)和用詞意在表達(dá)完全相反的兩種情況。這就是ironic(反諷)。反諷可以是滑稽的，但并不是所有滑稽的事都可以稱(chēng)得上“反諷”。