Hardest style/grammar rules to get right

affect/effect
I'm better with them now, but for years I absolutely had to write around them.

 

I do pretty well with this one now, but it took a while to get it staright.

Affect, as a verb, means to influence: The game will affect the standings.
Affect, as a noun, is best avoided. It occasionally is used in psychology to describe an emotion, but there is no need for it in everyday language.
Effect, as a verb, means to cause: He will effect many changes in the company.
Effect, as a noun, means result: The effect was overwhelming. He miscalculated the effect of his actions. It was a law of little effect.

Fortunately, I rarely see the need to use effect as a verb, so otherwise it's pretty straightforward.

 

Ironic: Bucky Dent hitting a home run in the 1978 playoff versus the Red Sox.

I don't see how a diabetic getting hit by a truck carrying insulin is ironic. It's not the opposite of what's expected. That's always been my understanding of how to determine if something is ironic. No more, no less.

 

Well, yes it is.

You would expect a truck carrying insulin to help save a diabetic. You would not expect it to kill one.


And Bucky Dent's HR is not ironic. It was simply a rare occurrence, no different than finding a parking spot in the first row at the mall on Christmas Eve. No, you do not expect him to hit a home run. But in that case, ALL of his home runs would be ironic, and that's just silly.

A truck carrying insulin that hits a non-diabetic is not ironic, either. Just another rare occurrence.

Hope this helps.

 

It's always a good day when you learn something new.

Gracias.

 

Irony is misused as meaning strange quite often.

..or quite often misused as strange. lol

 

A writer typically will come into contact with true irony oh, maybe once or twice in his/her life.

That same writer will use the term oh, maybe a thousand or so times.

 

Many copy editors employ a good rule: Remove every reference to irony. It's a word reporters often put in, and good editors always take out.

If it's ironic, the best writing will just state the facts, and the reader will get the irony without needing a neon sign pointing to it.

 

And if that writer is a great writer... Like, say, on the level of James Joyce.. and he's always calling things ironic that aren't... Is that irony?

I say yes.