Ironically

I'm fond of pointing out when someone has an impaired sense of irony. But this was just too much.

After assigning Swift's "A Modest Proposal" for today's class, I opened up discussion. "That was disgusting..." "I can't believe you made us read that..." "I couldn't eat lunch...". Um, ok, so what was Swift's real point here? "He thinks people should eat babies..." "He says babies taste good..." They took Swift at face value.

The impaired sense of irony, however, was mine: they had conspired before class to do so. They gave up the gag after I started to lecture them on the concept of irony. One more minute and I would have made a total fool of myself.

So if any of my students read this blog: Kudos for a great joke!

In other news, my students' rich meta-irony skills may be needed in Germany, where a Gypsy-rights group is suing Sacha Baron Cohen over his hysterical Borat character, who claims he was a "Gypsy-hunter" back home in Kazakhstan. Will the ADL also pile on Cohen for saying - in character - disparaging things about Jews? Oi ve.