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Sarcasm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sarcasm[A] is the sneering, sly, jesting, or mocking of a person, situation or thing. It is strongly associated with irony, with some definitions classifying it as a type of verbal irony intended to insult or wound[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] — stating the opposite of the intended meaning, e.g. using "that's fantastic" to mean "that's awful".
It is used mostly in a humorous manner, but can express annoyance or anger.[8]
Fyodor Dostoyevsky defined sarcasm as "the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."[9]
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These days, sarcasm can be difficult to grasp in written form. To prevent this some people emphasize words with italics, bold, capitalization, and/or underlining (e.g. that’s just great); sarcastic comments on the Internet with an emoticon, such as ^o); or surround them with a made-up markup language tag, e.g. *sarcasm*,
Writers in the UK and some other countries have adopted the use of (!) (An exclamation mark in parentheses) following speech in which sarcasm or irony is perceptible via the tone of voice, a punctuation mark which is very regularly seen in subtitles. Another use is the "^" symbol, indicating a raised eyebrow.
Whilst this happens it is not universally the case. For example, Shakespeare regularly used sarcasm as a literary tool to emphasize a point or joke and rarely ever used quotation marks or italics. This has been a recent development and is sign-posted as a dumbing down of literature by many within the British canon.
- When something bad has happened: "this is just great", or "that was just perfect".
- In response to a bad joke: "that's just so funny", or obviously feigned (and often weak) laughter-"Ha. Ha. Ha. NO."
- When a boring statement has been made: "Wow, great!"
- When someone has thoroughly botched something: "Great job!" or "Congratulations!"
- When somebody states the obvious, saying something that everybody knew already: "Well done Sherlock Holmes..." or, more coarsely, "no shit Sherlock".
- When somebody accuses another of something bad/wrong: "Do I get bonus points if I act like I care?"
- When someone is being sarcastic in an email or instant messaging they use (!) at the end of their sarcastic sentence.
Sarcasm is derived from annoyance A^ "Sarcasm" appeared in English in 1579, from Late Latin "sarcasmos," in turn from Hellenistic or Medieval Greek "sarkasmos," and ancient Greek σαρκάζω (sarkazo, meaning 'to tear flesh'). (In ancient Greek the word for this idea was instead χλευασμός). Irony is closely associated with sarcasm, although Socrates, considered the father of dissembling irony, was not sarcastic. Sarcasm is frequently referred to as the "lowest form of wit", recent repetitions of this phrase can include a further comment stating "but the highest form of humour".
- ^ http://home.cfl.rr.com/eghsap/apterms.html
- ^ http://london.sonoma.edu/Essays/glossary.html
- ^ http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/terms.htm
- ^ http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter12section2.rhtml
- ^ http://www.pearsoned.ca/text/flachmann4/gloss_iframe.html
- ^ http://station05.qc.ca/csrs/bouscol/anglais/book_report/glossary3.html
- ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/sarcasm
- ^ http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/counselling/pages/problems/anger.html
- ^ http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/
