here is the best explanation I've found -- I used it when irony was my wwftd:
I tried to find out what irony really is, and discovered that
some ancient writer on poetry had spoken of Ironia, which we
call the drye mock, and I cannot think of a better term for it:
the drye mock. Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or
cynicism, which is often the voice of disappointed idealism, but
a delicate casting of a cool and illuminating light on life, and
thus an enlargement. The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek
to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns
the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to
speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a
moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of
controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and
thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often
speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to
be funny, the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.
- Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man
this is verbal irony, the irony that the Brits say USns don't get, the irony you have to be "more or less brilliant" to get. you won't get much watching US tv.
