In “Reality Bites,” Winona Ryder, applying for a newspaper job, is stumped when asked to “define irony.” It’s a good question. Ryder replies, “Well, I can’t really define irony … but I know it when I see it.” Really?

Irony confuses. Let’s leave dramatic irony (you know, back when irony was tragic and the audience knew what was going to happen to Oedipus before he did) aside, as well as the debate over the supposed death of irony (after irony became comic, a subject that the Book Review’s former editor Chip McGrath amusingly chronicled here). Instead, let’s talk about how we talk — and write.

Irony requires an opposing meaning between what’s said and what’s intended. Sounds simple, but it’s not. A paradox, something that seems contradictory but may be true, is not an irony. The Times stylebook, which, believe me, can be harsh, offers useful advice:

The loose “use of irony and ironically, to mean an incongruous turn of events, is trite. Not every coincidence, curiosity, oddity and paradox is an irony, even loosely. And where irony does exist, sophisticated writing counts on the reader to recognize it.”

Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” is equally useful. If it rains on your wedding day, that’s a coincidence, not an irony. If you win the lottery and drop dead before claiming the money, it’s good luck followed by bad luck. If you meet the man of your dreams and then meet his beautiful wife, it’s a bummer. But if a song called “Ironic” contains no irony, is that in itself ironic? Nope.

It may just be … dumb. It depends on the creator’s intent. So, as has been suggested, if Morissette purposely wrote a song called “Ironic” that contained no irony at all, is that ironic? We may be getting closer. Do you know irony when you see it?

What’s something you’ve read — other than a novel by Jane Austen — that’s ironic?