Adapted from "Irony and Sarcasm" by Roger Kreuz (MIT Press, 2020). Reprinted with permission from MIT Press. In February 1996, Alanis Morissette released the fourth single from “Jagged Little Pill,” ...

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 ...

In fairness to Alanis, pop singers and Canadians aren’t the only ones who struggle to understand irony. There’s an entire line of cognitive research dedicated to understanding the concept (as well as ...

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, ...

Since I started contributing to Psychology Today three years ago, I’ve been periodically exploring how laughter and humor are related to other terms often associated with them. They include concepts ...

“WELL, that’s just great.” Quick, what does that sentence mean? Is the speaker acknowledging some good news, celebrating a joyful event that just took place? Do we take the statement at face value? Or ...

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 Just when we need an ironic sensibility to remain cleareyed in dangerous times, we’re told irony is obsolete.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 ...

Irony has a special place in the human psyche. Otherwise mundane concepts suddenly come to life when they’re recognized to have an ironic quality. British comedian David Mitchell captures this ...

Song parodies on YouTube are often tedious things to be avoided. Not to single any of them out as being worse than the rest, but the recent Daft Punk/Marvel’s The Avengers mashup, Get Loki, for ...