Keith Waterhouse in the Daily Mail:
"The poet Roger McGough has run foul of the Clerk to the House of Commons with a 14-line poem, commissioned by Liverpool City Council and tabled as an Early Day Motion which, the clerk fears, may contain traces of irony.
A spokesman for the company guiding Liverpool to be European Capital of Culture 2008 explained: 'Strict parliamentary rules prohibit the use of irony in Early Day Motions. The line about Scousers not being given to boasting or making a show may have been too much for House authorities.'
Irony has always been a headache for writers of wit who have to explain to readers of little wit that they were being ironic. The problem was solved by the great American journalist H. L. Mencken who invented a typeface sloping the opposite way to italics and called it Ironics."

Alas, I can't find Mencken's typeface on my computer. Ironics is lost on those best suited to moronics.

And...for those of us who are literalists...well, we're searching all over our keyboards for those great opposite-sloping italics.

Honey, you get that typeface by hitting ALT-F4.

First, I was joking. But secondly, when I hit ALT-F4, my posting screen disappears.

Is there really a backward slanting print? If so, what is it used for?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
First, I was joking. But secondly, when I hit ALT-F4, my posting screen disappears.

Is there really a backward slanting print? If so, what is it used for?

ALt-F4 closes the current window. Someone's having a little joke with you...

I knew I should shut up before getting into trouble in this thread.

Maybe I'll steal Mencken's idea and patent it as my own, adding it to all our new keyboards- I'll be rich! Rich! I tell ya!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Erik Johansen,

I do think it would be a great idea. If we didn't use it for irony, we could use if for something else, such as quoted material. We could forego those lousy quotation marks. I'd buy that keyboard, Erik!

Should have added (maniacal laughter) to the above perhaps! Why do mad scientists, etc. enjoy laughing so much?
Yes, it would be handy to have an additional way to annotate something, backward sloping italics would do,especially if we wanted to show that we were being 'ironic' to an American! (Tin helmet on and racing for cover!)