What chance have we at understanding each other?

Writing

Seriously, what chance do we have communicating effectively when lexicographers can't agree on the meanings of the words we use? Oh, what would you call a person who is an expert with words? Educated? Grammarian? Linguist? See what I mean?
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The topic of this essay was suggested by a comic strip that I recently read in which a character laments, “There should be a term for the opposite of ironic.

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Well, there is, isn't there? There is, I looked it up. All was clear until my wife looked it up. That's when confusion reared its ugly head.

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Ironic: Antonyms

• My source: logical, sincere
• Her source: exaggeration, hyperbole, overstatement

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That's when the argument, or should I say “debate”, began. We decided to settle it by first agreeing on the meaning of “irony”.

Think about it. We did. What is “irony”? Okay, you aren't a lexicographer and neither are we. We turned to our smart phones and looked it up. Apparently the experts can't agree on the definition either, nor the synonyms for “irony”.

Well, let's go back to the source. Let's consult the people who invented the word. They should know, right?

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Irony (origin): early 16th cent. (also denoting Socratic irony): via Latin from Greek eirōneia ‘simulated ignorance,’ from eirōn ‘dissembler.’

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Say what?

H. L. Mencken famously described the British and Americans as “two people separated by a common language.” I suggest that my wife and I similarly separated as is everybody else.

So, before you jump down someone's throat for some imagined slight, I suggest you stop and ask, “What did you mean by that?”