the corner office

I was on the Tube; it was packed. Standing near me were a young man and woman. I heard enough to make out that they were friends and colleagues, and she was accompanying him to the airport to say goodbye as he went on holiday before heading off on her own weekend adventure, somewhere.

He was South Asian and she was ... I was having one of those "Is she? Wait, no. I think so... nah... maybe?" moments, and then she said something like "in South Africa we..." and yes. She was South African, but her accent was a bit odd, with weird twists. I stood there wondering: were these quirks unique to her (quite possible), or was it a regional accent I'd just never heard before (maybe, but unlikely, surely), or - more soberingly - have I been gone for so long that young South Africans' accents are changing in ways I'm just not aware of?

Either way, they're obviously good friends, nattering away about work and weekend plans, and I'm hearing snatches through the din, and then her friend comments on something, saying that it's "ironical".

At which point, the proverbial stylus gets yanked off the record player.

"That's not a word."

"What's not a word?" her friend, puzzled.

"Ironical. It's not a word."

Her friend protests, what do you mean, of course it's a word, etc.

"Yeeeaaah, not a word, buddy. I think you mean ironic."

The disagreement persists, and eventually she pulls out her phone "... I'm going to have to see what Merriam-Webster says about that..."

I didn't hear what happened next - we arrived at a stop, or something, and that was the last I heard of their conversation. Still, their exchange had left me chuckling to myself, and in the end, I'd been amused that she'd decided to call on Merriam-Webster to settle the issue. Surely the first choice of a pedantic Commonwealther disagreeing with another Commonwealther wouldn't be the M-W, an American dictionary, no matter how venerated, when so many "our English" dictionaries exist? Amusing, perhaps even... ironic(al)?

But I must confess to thinking that my money was with the South African aunty. Remembering the discussion later and looking it up, I was a little surprised to learn that had I put money on it, I'd have lost the bet.

Ironic and ironical are, in fact, both valid words. Both have been around for centuries, and only since the 20th century has ironic gone from underdog to becoming the more commonly-used and considered-correct choice. Even Winston Churchill, no slouch when it came to stitching good English words together, used ironical more often than ironic. Live and learn.

(What I also learned was that Merrian-Webster is owned - and has been since the 1960s - by Encyclopaedia Britannica. That bit of irony, to me at least, is topped only by the fact that Encyclopaedia Britannica itself has been American-owned since the 1920s.)