Sarcasm
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Sarcasm from Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmos), 'mockery, sarcasm' is sneering, jesting, or mocking at 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 — 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, and is expressed through vocal intonations such as over-emphasizing the actual statement or particular words. Use of sarcasm is sometimes viewed as an expression of concealed anger or annoyance.
Punctuation
Though in the English language there is no standard accepted method to denote irony or sarcasm in written conversation, several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently attested are the percontation point—furthered by Henry Denham in the 1580s—and the irony mark—furthered by Alcanter de Brahm in the 19th century. Both of these marks were represented visually by a ⸮ backwards question mark (unicode U+2E2E). Each of these punctuation marks are primarily used to indicate that a sentence should be understood as ironic, but not necessarily designate sarcasm that is not ironic. By contrast, more recent proposals, such as the snark mark, or the use of a following tilde are specifically intended to denote sarcasm rather than irony. A bracketed exclamation point or question mark as well as scare quotes are also sometimes used to express irony or ironic sarcasm.
In certain Ethiopic languages, sarcasm and unreal phrases are indicated at the end of a sentence with a sarcasm mark called temherte slaq, a character that looks like an inverted exclamation point ¡. The usage directly parallels John Wilkins' 1668 proposal to use the inverted exclamation point as an irony mark. A proposal by Asteraye Tsigie and Daniel Yacob in 1999 to include the temherte slaq in unicode was unsuccessful.
See also
- Facetiousness
- Irony
- Oxymoron
- Paradox
- Sardonicism
- Smirk
- Snarl
- Sneer
- Witticism
- Guiltive
- Hyperbole
- Tongue-in-cheek
