Hi, Ian. My understanding of part of what you wrote in your post "Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Origins - Watzlawick" can be described with the statements: "I only intend the following statements I make to apply to you if you are an American. One of the things some Brits enjoy about some Americans is the absence of understanding of irony in, and absence of use of irony by, those Americans.  I intend my prior statement not to be a criticism of Americans, in the case that you are an American." You might believe that what you wrote is not critical of me because, only in the case that I am an American: (1)you personally, unlike other Brits, do not believe that I lack understanding of irony or use of irony just because I am an American. (2)you do not believe that it is insulting to tell me that I lack understanding of irony or use of irony. (3)you do not believe that I, lacking understanding of irony and use of irony, have reason to feel bad about lacking understanding of irony and use of irony. (4) you do not believe that I, lacking understanding of irony and use of irony, will be improved by having understanding of irony and use of irony. (5) you believe that by following a potentially insulting statement to me with a statement that says that you don't intend to be critical of me, I will not be insulted. However, in the post that this post replies to, you also wrote: "Or perhaps your posting itself is designed to be ironic ? (in which case - most excellent dude!)" which in my understanding equivalently means "If your posting was designed by you to be ironic, then you are an American." And that statement has alternative interpretations, some strong, and some weak, including: "If you think you designed an ironic post, then you are an American." , "If the post you designed is ironic, then you are an American." , "Only Americans design posts that they themselves think are ironic" and even "Only Americans design ironic posts" . Ian, I believed in a sense of the concept of irony when I posted my prior post to you.  But after reading your reply to that post, I read a discussion on exrefer.com of the term "irony".  I want you, Ian, to know that I haven't been playing the eiron to your alazon, nor was I when I posted my prior post to you. But the communications posted to this thread may remain a tragic irony of misunderstood communications.  I hope this post doesn't contribute to the structural irony that this thread seems to have so far. Although you intended to use social irony when you wrote that some British people have a prejudice against some American people, I'm letting you know that your intentions were not satisfied.  You gave your prejudiced statements fanfare when you wrote that I should ignore their content if I am not an American. You used an exclamation point prior to writing your prejudiced statement. Your prejudiced statement was socially innappropriate, not social irony at all. -nj ps: This post contains statements which - in this sentence I employ romantic irony - give this post romantic irony. pps: if you don't know what romantic irony means, look it up on xrefer.com in their listing for the term "irony" taken from "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", 1992 edition.  I want you to know what I do not mean by the term "romantic irony".