IRONY OF SITUATION

This form of irony can occur in life as well as literature: a person or character performs an action with a definite intention but the outcome turns out to have an opposite and significant effect. It produces a sense of "ouch" in the observer, such as when someone superstitious steps into the road to avoid the bad luck following walking under a ladder and is then knocked down. There is often a feeling that the result is fated although it can be comic or tragic. In Jane Austen's Emma, Emma persuades her friend Harriet Smith to look in a higher social rank to find a marriage partner and Harriet, because of this, chooses Mr Knightley, thus making Emma realise that she herself loves him.

IRONY

Irony is a wide term which refers to a tone created by discrepancy and may be simplified into three basic modes:
1) an intention has an unexpected outcome; 2)  words do not mean what they say; 3) a character in a play says something which we know to be misguided or wrong. It always involves a twist which we feel to be significant and may be either comic or tragic
These are known as: 1) irony of situation; 2) verbal irony;
3) dramatic irony. All can produce a sense of satisfaction in the reader or member of the audience who feels sufficiently intelligent to have perceived its use.
I intend to deal with each separately over the next couple of weeks.

SPELLING TIPS

No English word ends in j
No English word ends in v except spiv
No English word ends in i except taxi (and ski and some other foreign imports* such as spaghetti)
Never write vv
Never write uv - write ov even if sound is uv
q never stands alone - write qu
w makes or say er: worm

*There is some controversy about some words finishing in i and whether they are now considered English or foreign but the rule holds: i is not a natural English ending - think hard and check before you write it at the end of a word..

DISCREET and DISCRETE

Discreet is used of a person who can keep a secret or is reliably cautious in conversation: He is very discreet and I can confide in him safely.
Discrete means separate or distinct: She has many friends but never sees them all together; she keeps them in discrete groups.

LITOTES

This term is pronounced with three syllables and long vowels and means understatement. It is often used with a negative: he is not a generous man - meaning he is very mean.
This idiom is common in Chaucer who says of the Clerk of Oxford ; "he nas nat [was not] right fat ", indicating that the man was extremely thin.
(Note that double or even triple negatives do not cancel each other out in late Middle English; they merely emphasize.)

AMBIVALENT and AMBIGUOUS

Ambiguous is used of a speaker or writer who does not make his or her meaning clear, possibly deliberately to give two meanings.: His sentence was ambiguous and nobody knew which way to take it.
Ambivalent is used of a person having contradictory feelings: I was ambivalent about the matter, partly supporting him and partly rejecting his message.

SOLILOQUY

This is a speech uttered when a character is alone on the stage or is addressing the audience rather than the other players. Its function is usually to reveal inner thoughts and the apron-fronted stage of an Elizabethan theatre lent itself to this purpose.
For my analysis of the famous soliloquies in Hamlet visit: http://www.classicsenglishliterature.com