In my very slow battle against the neutering of the word "irony", it was gratifying to see two references to the word in Sunday's New York Times. The First was in Randy Kennedy's column on the words of 2005:
The facination of such a chart would be to watch in great detail how quickly so-called pop words - spawned by news cycle, marketing, the Internet - arc from obscurity to ubiquity to obsolecense. Which ones pause in the semi-retirement of irony, where they can be used only with a smirk? Do any have staying power to reach those evergreen pastures where cliche's go to roam?The second comes from William Safire's "On Language" column on the use of "meta" as a word.
It is a prefix meaning "among, after, behind" and especially beyond," replies reviewer, Kate Sekules. "I think it suggests the experience in question may be digested on more than one level. As distinct from the early-90s "ironic," it has no pejorative tinge...So be ironic if you are being a wee bit of a prick. Be funny if you are not. Be sorry if you have confused the two.
