Sometimes I come across a turn of phrase that makes me stop and think. Sometimes I am fascinated; others I am bewildered.
Well, today I ran across two small things in my reading for my communications class. The first is:
Put more simply, because modern society is hopelessly fragmented and indivisible, (emphasis mine) the sort of story or unfragmented narrative thinkers … try to tell is simply not appropriate for modern times.” (“The Bunless Burger”, Robin Wynyard, McDonaldization Revisited, p 167-168)
How can something be both in fragments and indivisible? I checked the dictionary: indivisible is not one of those words that can mean something and its opposite. So either the writer wrote something just plain wrong, or there is some subtle point they are trying to make here. Anyone with an idea of the subtle point, please elaborate and help me out.
The second item is:
A former professor of mine defined irony broadly as “the strategy of giving unexpected responses” (“Post Modern Hamburgers”, Mark Alfino, McDonaldization Revisited., p 178).
I like the way this describes irony. It elucidates a side of irony that people don’t often see. Yet as a definition it is not very good. It includes a lot of things that definitely aren’t irony.
References
Alfino, M. Caputo, J. Wynyand, R; (1998) McDonaldization Revisited, Westford, CT., Praeger Publishers.
At The Rainbow 