Is there a way (spoken or written) to make a phrase sound ironic in Latin?
For example "good for you" would be "tibi bonum est"?
Could there be intonation or another word to make it sound ironic?
Is there a way (spoken or written) to make a phrase sound ironic in Latin?
For example "good for you" would be "tibi bonum est"?
Could there be intonation or another word to make it sound ironic?
Irony is certainly present in the Latin lexicon: it was one of the classical rhetoric techniques in fact. Joel's reference to Cicero's credo is a good example of its use.
Other common semantic inversions, most of which we would recognize as a kind of irony, include:
To find a veritable treasure trove of more colloquial (and quite hilarious) irony, I recommend some quality time with Plautus. Here is a good example from the Curculio:
Phaedrus: Huic proxumum illud ostiumst oculissimum. salve, valuistin?
Palindromus: Ostium occlusissimum, caruitne febris te heri vel nudiustertius et heri cenavistine?
Phaed: Deridesne me?
Pal: Quid tu ergo, insane, rogitas valeatne ostium?
My translation:
Phaed: Close to this [temple] is that most beautiful of doors. [to the door] Hello, how have you been?
Pal: O most closed [N.B.: almost the same as "most beautiful"] of doors, I hope you haven't been sick yesterday or the day before and that you ate well yesterday.
Phaed: Are you mocking me?
Pal: Well, idiot, why were you just asking how the door has been?
Here (as in English), the use of unnecessary superlatives is an effective way of conveying the exact opposite.
Along these lines, I would suggest translating an ironic good for you as:
Optimum factu!
I found examples from both Cicero and Caesar using the supine with optimum, so this should sound fairly fluent. An alternative that more readily fits into the supine mold would be Mirabile factu! I would be happy to help with a more exact translation of this phrase if you can provide more context.
Concerning the proposed translation tibi bonum est, this does not convey the same meaning as the English idiomatic phrase good for you. I found a few examples of this phrase in some Renaissance moral manuals, but the phrase depends on context: it means something like "X is [a] good for you." I believe the phrase is so rare because this meaning would normally be conveyed by a double dative: Tibi bono est.
Note that the phrase "good for you" is not necessarily ironic: context, in English as in Latin, almost always determines the tone. "Good for you" can be alternatively ironic, condescending, or even complimentary.
Whenever Cicero uses crēdō parenthetically, he means it ironically. For example In Catilinam I:
Si te iam, Catilina, comprehendi, si interfici iussero, credo, erit verendum mihi, ne non potius hoc omnes boni serius a me quam quisquam crudelius factum esse dicat.
And In Verrem:
At, credo, in hisce solis rebus indomitas cupiditates atque effrenatas habebat: ceteræ libidines ejus ratione aliqua aut modo continebantur.
I'm fairly certain the OLD discusses this in the entry for credo but I don't have one to hand at the moment so I'll have to quote an editorial signed only "C.K." in The Classical Weekly, vol. X no. 3, October 16, 1916:
As everyone knows, the parenthetical credo repeatedly marks irony.
I'm not sure I buy tibi, credo, bonum est, and of course there are all sorts of non-ironic uses of credo, but still you might find it useful at some point.