I'm not in Vancouver and all may be different there but, in Toronto, good schools, ones with consistent high scholarship dollars granted to graduating students, are hard to get into. A friend of one of my daughters got a free ride at Brown, second best result for that year's class. I asked the father about it and he chuckled that he could have saved twenty grand on the house by one across the road but his wife talked him out of it. He said the house looked a bargain at that moment. School district isn't a sales tool here but an important consideration for parents.

It's different in Vancouver.

Fair enough. The daughter living there tells me it's not academically competitive in BC, not at all, and that new graduates have their choice of work locations, firms and fields of work. It's just as one imagines, she says, lots of weed, lots of yoga, papers can be handed in any month you like, people coast through school. 90210, she said.

"Yeah", I thought, "one thing an Asian population does for a place is to take the competition out of scholastic efforts".

Ha,ha. Nice one.
The best way to 'read' dBd33's posts for those not accustomed to his rapier-like wit is to simply assume he has built in a qualifier of sorts into his comments.

Upon reading, one is to remove any "not" and "cannots" in the text, switching them round with any positive impliers in his comments.

Watch, its easy - "I read in the Post the other day that most people in Ontario do not care much about the politics of Immigration. At the same time they do whine about standards in the provincial education system no end; this does surprise me as compared to Alberta I think Ontario is very enlightened".

Switch-a-roo, puff of smoke.

Do this and his 'actual' posts are usually spot on

FROTSUK

Us lesser posters have really never understood dbd's posts so I fort one really appreciate you taking the time out to give us a detailed explanation of how they work. In particular, I liked your example for dramatic effect, it was especially insightful into how dbd constructs sentences in his writing style. So thanks a lot - a lot of us would never have worked out irony for ourselves.

Finally, someone who gets it. Thank you for sharing.

Tsh,tosh - may be of some use to newbies.
That would be your crack at 'sarcasm' then one presumes?
And, you are most welcome Alan

FROTSUK

Just for you petal. No need to thank me; a public service.

How To Recognize Irony - Sarcasm Society
Quite often sarcasm is mistaken for irony; however, sarcasm is a form of irony which uses sharp wit to highlight the obviousness, stupidity, or annoyance-factor
of ...

http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/irony/...ize-irony.html


FROTSUK

Pro tip: When attempting to affect an air of knowledgeable condescension, it helps if you cite a source that doesn't contradict itself in the first sentence.

This is all to highbrow for me. But finally, we've got someone on this forum who gives us the straight goods.

Therein lies the 'irony'.
Please do try to keep up with the game - the Master tires

FROTSUK

Oh you knew?, That's ok then. I thought for a minute that you'd just googled "difference between sarcasm and irony" and posted the first link you found?

yay, i love it when threads drift

Oh dear. Set a trap, tell the tiger where it is and he will still fall in it!
No the 'irony' (sorry for the upcoming Machiavellian lesson Oink ) was that you were using language in the first place, in just the way you were trying to berate.

I know that, and you know, that I know.

Had you trotted out a stock phrase from the start, such as, "Canadians just do not get sarcasm" or perhaps "North Americans do not appreciate Irony", then that would have been a different KOF.

However you didn't, hence my wasting of some (30) potential Billable minutes in English 101.

FROTSUK