By Expressions, Irony

To me, "merely" here most naturally means "I don't claim anything else", not "I don't do anything more than claim it", so doesn't add to the doubt. Since we may reasonably assume that the statement claim is false, the question for me is whether the...

When you add "merely" to that, the skepticism mounts.The expression lends itself to two interpretations: (1) The claim is false. (2) I don't want to fight with you. I'm simply stating a fact.I don't know which interpretation would better serve (or preserve) the irony of the...

"instances of ironic speech" "conversational irony" My problem in trying to make sense of this is that I've never thought of a sentence (or even a statement or an expression) as being ironic. I think of situations as ironic. (It may fall to people to point out the...

Hi, OK, could someone please explain to me what's the meaning of the underlined expression?'You from Homicide? he asked Jack and Jimmy collectively''We're not from garbagemen's softball team' This is said with irony/sarcasm. The idea is 'We are not garbage men, we are police officers'.best...

Louw says: "a text receiver needs to utilise the knowledge of semantic prosody to percieve irony in the message or to judge the degree of sincerity of its proponent. Access to information on prosody from the corpus is paticulary important for nonnative speakers, since they are more liable to miss...

Hi guys, "It is not a nice state of affairs for a Government that is not trusted by 80% of the population to do what it is paid to do - collect and spend tax wisely"I've learnt so far that "nice state of affairs" has a negative meaning and simply means. "It's not a good situation" or "a nasty...

Mister Micawber wrote:Figures of speech are a kind of literary device. From online:Figure of speech: 'A mode of expression in which words are used out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary use; for instance, hyperbole, simile, metaphor.'Literary device: 'a literary or linguistic...

I claim no answer to any of the questions. I am just thinking aloud. Nona The Brit wrote: 1. Why you think there is "an earlier draft of this paper" instead of "the earlier draft of this paper"? Because there was more than one earlier draft? People often do two or three (or more) drafts...

Eladio, I don't think the verb choice in itself plays a significant role in creating irony (which you are using here in the sense of "sarcasm"). Rather, it is the entire sentence, and, as mentioned above, tone of voice. Unusual and clever expressions tend more toward sarcasm than mere...

Hi 'Eladio', I'm trying to understand the level of irony I can put by using different verbs. Is what I have written in brackets correct? May I ask if you at least can fry eggs? ("normal" irony) May I ask if you at least know how to fry eggs? ("normal" irony) May I ask if you al least have the...