Sensible Erection | A little Irony

Friday, 21 December 2007

quote [ Ken Hendricks, 66, was checking on construction Thursday night on the roof at his home in the town of Rock when he fell through, Rock County Sheriff's Department Cmdr. Troy Knudson said. ]

[by leswilkerson@11:53amGMT] [+9 Funny]

Comments

Baxter_UK said @ 11:58am GMT on 21st Dec [Score:2 Insightful]
Moar irony: ""It doesn't make any difference to me; I can't spend it," Hendricks said in an interview with Inc.com in September 2006. "I'd have to sell the company, and I'll sell the company over my dead body.""

TheCooler said @ 12:00pm GMT on 21st Dec
+1 Eye-Row-Knee

lateniter said @ 5:38pm GMT on 21st Dec
"Define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash."

EPT said @ 2:53am GMT on 22nd Dec
See, while a great line, it's not really ironic - the song isn't about a plane crash, nor is the song's popularity due to the plane crash. The song and the band dying in a crash are separate incidents.

lateniter said @ 7:56pm GMT on 22nd Dec
Websters
3 - a combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what is or might be expected or considered appropriate [an irony that the firehouse burned]

The irony referred to is not the song, the song's popularity or the band - it is in reference to the "idiots" dancing and listening to the song: They are oblivious to their surroundings. It being a plane and, in fact, their situation one which most certainly was likely to *go down in flames*. So, the irony is that they are much like the band members who made the song they were listening to: both on a plane and probably likely to end up dead soon.

boshk said @ 12:27pm GMT on 21st Dec
kinda makes you wonder why they picked cleveland for the rock and roll hall of fame.... when the city of rock, in rock county, would have been a much better choice in hindsight....

themindtaker said @ 12:35pm GMT on 21st Dec
Heh. Good Thumb.
Also, anyone else see this?:

They couldn't do any better than that? Hahaha!

PS I'm high.

themindtaker said @ 12:36pm GMT on 21st Dec
Obviously.

EPT said @ 1:55am GMT on 23rd Dec
I remember seeing testimonials for a commercial product that were attributed to 'anon'. Great testimonial: This product is so good I won't put my name to it!

monkeytooth said @ 12:57pm GMT on 21st Dec
it gives me a schadenfreudey feeling

lycurgus said @ 2:03pm GMT on 21st Dec [Score:1 Insightful]
So, a guy who makes all his money building roofs ends up building a roof for his own home, and while doing some part of the construction falls and dies. Seems like that is exactly how you would expect a person who did that kind of work for a living to die, especially if they continued doing said work after the expected age of retirement. Correct me if I'm wrong, but irony refers to something which is unexpected, does it not?

jhvh1 said @ 2:11pm GMT on 21st Dec
so would it be irony if he died banging an underaged tranny in the back of a van filled with Baptists tracts?

cause that's about how I expect most people to go...
or at least wish

TheCooler said @ 2:19pm GMT on 21st Dec
God knows I do

warmseat said @ 2:54pm GMT on 21st Dec
Been there, done that.
Well, it was a van filled with soaking wet mail adn she was a 41 yo mailwoman.
But until she agreed to wear that mailsack, she looked like a man.

ckfahrenheit said @ 2:50pm GMT on 21st Dec
it'd be more ironic if he wrote a treatise on construction safety, sure

Narrenschiff said @ 5:13pm GMT on 21st Dec [Score:1 Insightful]
I suppose the point is that you'd expect his roofs to be top notch and such.

leswilkerson said @ 6:38pm GMT on 21st Dec
That's why I considered it ironic.

Misanthrope said @ 8:20pm GMT on 21st Dec
Though he didn't build it.

lycurgus said @ 9:08pm GMT on 21st Dec
it was under construction at the time, meaning...well, I don't know how much roofing you do, but generally roof construction involves large gaps in said roof, as well as the supporting structures. It seems like something of a stretch to say he died because of the shoddiness of his product, when it was the act of construction and not the finished product which caused his death. Anyway, the article is a complete stretch for any definition of irony.

Irony (American Heritage Dictionary) :

1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
3. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect.

ThirdSpango said @ 9:55pm GMT on 21st Dec [Score:3 Underrated]
Quoting an American dictionary for the meaning of irony is pretty ironic.

The man made a living from roofs and then died from one = irony.

lycurgus said @ 8:30am GMT on 22nd Dec
That's an expected outcome. That's not irony at all. Please look up the word in whatever moronic dictionary you respect, then come back.

Todomanna said @ 9:30am GMT on 22nd Dec
It's expected that you'll die from roofing? Spending, at most, a third of your weekday (minus vacations), when he's probably learned how to stay fairly safe while roofing for so long?

I'm sure he spends more time on the toilet. And we all know how dangerous the toilet is.

lycurgus said @ 2:15pm GMT on 22nd Dec
It's certainly not unexpected in any way, which is the root of something being ironic. If I am incorrect, please tell me how I am wrong and how this fits any defintion of irony.

ThirdSpango said @ 9:57pm GMT on 21st Dec
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

That's a pun, surely?

Narrenschiff said @ 7:25am GMT on 22nd Dec
Listen, buddy, quoting irony from an dictionary doesn't show anything. Irony is an art or a feeling, not a science. You feel it first, name it later. Don't be telling us that we don't know our irony! Dammit we are REASONABLE FUCKING PEOPLE here on SE and we so help us God we will come over to your house and fuck you up the ass if you interrupt our intelligent, sensible and peaceable community.

CHRIST

lycurgus said @ 8:29am GMT on 22nd Dec
No, it's a word, and people use it wrong all the fucking time. Now shut the fuck up and go back to misusing "literally".

lycurgus said @ 8:36am GMT on 22nd Dec
Unless that's an "art" too...

Todomanna said @ 9:31am GMT on 22nd Dec
I painted "literally" on a big canvas for an art project in high school.

I got a C- :\

Narrenschiff said @ 9:26am GMT on 22nd Dec
:D

Naruki said @ 5:37pm GMT on 21st Dec
It is perceived as ironic because he made billions selling a product that - seemingly - wasn't worth the money because it killed him.

Naturally, to truly be ironic, he would have had to have actively promoted the safety of his products over his competitors', as well as dying due to unsafety of the same products rather than other causes, such as contractor screw up.

But most people won't wait for confirmation of such details, since the appearance of irony is just as much fun without all the work.

Kimota said @ 7:53pm GMT on 21st Dec
No. It would have been ironic if his ceiling had caved in and killed him because he had neglected to repair it.

Naruki said @ 2:06am GMT on 22nd Dec
Why?

Kimota said @ 5:10am GMT on 22nd Dec
Because his job was repairing ceilings.

Naruki said @ 9:45pm GMT on 22nd Dec
Not according to the article. It says his job was CEO of a supply company.

He _had been_ a roofer, but I think he stopped doing that once his supply business got off the ground.

I was a High School student once, but it wouldn't be ironic if I died of a lack of angst now.

Dioxin said @ 6:04pm GMT on 21st Dec [Score:1 Insightful]
This article has almost exclusively been about rhetorical irony, which has much more fluidity and variety than situational irony. That does not mean that situational irony is entirely straightforward - often, the appearance that God or Fate was attempting to make you think one thing when another was going to happen is down to your own misreading or wilful blindness, and therefore isn't ironic at all. Furthermore, where rhetorical irony can be as simple as saying the opposite of what you mean, cosmic irony is not simply experiencing the opposite of what you thought was going to happen. For instance, if I was having a party, and I thought my dad was going to come, and he didn't, that wouldn't be ironic. If, on the other hand, I was having a party and I didn't want my dad to come, and I spent three weeks working on a brilliant cover story for why he couldn't come, and then my sister accidentally blew my cover, so I had to invite him anyway, and then, on the way here, he got run over and died - that's ironic.

Narrenschiff said @ 2:31pm GMT on 21st Dec [Score:5 Informative]
Threadjack: NEW SEXY LOSERS :D

Supreme_Coconut said @ 3:40pm GMT on 21st Dec
Ah, Fastload. <3 Commodore 64.

EPT said @ 2:50am GMT on 22nd Dec
Such a long wait... for such a let down. Compare to the glory of the previous comic.

ckfahrenheit said @ 2:51pm GMT on 21st Dec
I was going to say roofles but the man died, so "wtf"