"free ride" - ASL?

Hey all,

I am working on interpreting "Ironic" by Alanis Morrisette for my ITP for tomorrow night.

My tutor (who is Deaf and ASL fluent) and I were trying to come up with a good interpretation for

"It's a free ride when you've already paid"

We decided on:
"ticket opportunity free, ticket pay finish"

Any other thoughts or suggestions? This one is hard because "free ride" in English doesn't always mean "ticket"

Here's a video on YouTube of Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" in ASL:


Perhaps it will give you some idea of how to interpret the one lyric that you mentioned.

Thank you. I did see that video, but her interpretation is literal and not the actual meaning of "free ride".

"free ride" means getting something without the hard work or money typically associated with it. It has nothing to do with an actual "ride".

OpheliaSpeaks said:

Thank you. I did see that video, but her interpretation is literal and not the actual meaning of "free ride".

"free ride" means getting something without the hard work or money typically associated with it. It has nothing to do with an actual "ride".

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Oh, okay. Sorry about that! (I couldn't see the video for myself to know how the song was actually interpreted.)

It sounds like your interpretation of that lyric is a good one. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a better translation.

OpheliaSpeaks said:

Thank you. I did see that video, but her interpretation is literal and not the actual meaning of "free ride".

"free ride" means getting something without the hard work or money typically associated with it. It has nothing to do with an actual "ride".

Click to expand...

So "free ride" must be an English idiom. Something separate from ASL.

Bottesini said:

So "free ride" must be an English idiom. Something separate from ASL.

Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct. If we say, "She got a free ride to the university" this means that she got a full scholarship. She doesn't need to pay tuition. Or you could say, "He got a free ride into office" meaning he didn't have to do a lot of campaigning or convincing people to vote for him. So the meaning changes depending on the situation.

I decided to try for now:

"opportunity - free" ::body shift:: "till now - hard work - money - finish - (free opportunity) no matter"

We'll see. I am sure my ASL teacher for the ITP will have a better way of doing it. I am just nervous about being able to hear the song well enough to interpret it!

I've visited this site several times but never quite felt compelled to sign up and post until this thread. I used to absolutely LOVE this song.

You've certainly chose a challenging song to interpret, in my opinion. You seem to be on the right track so far though, so congrats and good luck to you.


Depending on how close to the timing of the lyrics you want to be... this is how I'd do it.


(happily - eyebrows up) ticket ride (with your non dominant hand as the c handshape and other hand showing getting on and going- not like horse ride or what not) buy finish - *body shift* - Gift (from out towards yourself- looking up towards would-be giver) ticket - (show disappointment) then possibly add a 'darn' at the end.

Thanks for the suggestion Hen. I posted my video (the one I used for class the other night) here.

My computer made the video pretty choppy (I'm way overdue for a computer upgrade- but who has the funds! :P ) but I was able to see a couple parts of the video smoothly- I really like how you signed the part about the man of you dreams + his beautiful wife.