Many Americans (from the U.S. - lest we offend our friends south and north of the border) do not get irony. This is possibly because it is a more subtle form of humor, therefore more difficult to do well, and less likely to be a regular part of mass media TV, movies, books, etc.

Americans are therefore less exposed to it and when they are, sometimes (many times) outright don't get it. This is nobody's fault really, people seem the be happy enough with the mass media stuff (or else they would try to see and read other stuff) and the mass media people keep doing the same stuff because enough people regularly will buy it.

There are plenty of Americans who enjoy irony and other less-common forms of humor and we search them out, just like we do with folk music (that's why we're here at Mudcat).

NOW that the serious part is through . . .

We had a great bit of irony in last Sunday's church service that had the congregation laughing & rolling around in the pews: there's a part of the service where the kids come up front and the minister tells them a story or something. We had a lay minister to teach the kids some important words about life. He chose to do this by playing the game Hangman. The last word he used was "perserver." He started out alright, but when an "r" was guessed he missed one of them. Then he put the "s" in the wrong place and incorrectly put an "a" where the 2nd "e" should be. At that point he gave up, tried to write the word, but did so incorrectly, and turned to the kids and told them that to perserver means to never give up even when the going is tough.

Some of the anal retentive types in the pews didn't think it was funny, but the rest of us love the beautiful bit of irony that occurred.