This example suggests that the concept of mention versus use can provide an adequate account of verbal irony for those cases in which literal meanings are not intended—that is, for cases in which meanings are mentioned instead of being used. Echoic reminder theory accounts for these cases and also for cases in which literal meanings are intended and are used, as in Example 15. Mention, then, can be considered a special case of echoic reminding, in which implicit antecedents are echoically mentioned in order to remind a listener of those antecedents and, in sarcastic irony, to derogate an idea and the source of that idea.