Reply #32: What you've got a hold of is a more specifically literary definition

[Plaid Adder]

It's based on the same idea: the difference between what's presented to you and what's really there. Something like, say, Swift's _Modest Proposal_ presents itself as a serious plan to stimulate the Irish economy but in fact is an attack on the forces he considers responsible for Ireland's poverty.

The OED online gives four definitions for irony. The first one is closer to your English teacher's:

1. A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.

The second one is closer to the one I was using:

2. fig. A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things. (In F. ironie du sort.)

(see also: 2000 presidential election, 2004 presidential election)

_The Daily Show's_ use of irony also incorporates definitions 3 & 4:

3. In etymological sense: Dissimulation, pretence; esp. in reference to the dissimulation of ignorance practised by Socrates as a means of confuting an adversary (Socratic irony).

(TDS correspondents often use this kind of irony to draw out particularly insane interview subjects; this is also one of the major tactics Colbert uses in his interviews)

irony, n.

Add: <2.> spec. in Theatr. (freq. as dramatic or tragic irony), the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned; the literary device so used, orig. in Greek tragedy; also transf. (Later examples.)

(this kind of irony is built into almost all of the reports filed by TDS's "correspondents," who never understand how insane what they're saying actually is)

Then, of course, there's the Blackadder definition of irony: "It's like goldy, and bronzy, only it's made of iron."

C ya,

The Plaid Adder