{"id":18346,"date":"2021-06-02T10:02:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T17:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/?p=18346"},"modified":"2021-06-02T11:12:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T18:12:08","slug":"sarcasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2021\/06\/02\/sarcasm\/","title":{"rendered":"sarcasm"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

I recently got curious about the history of sarcasm, so I looked up sarcasm<\/i> in Wikipedia. I was surprised to see that Wikipedia distinguishes between sarcasm<\/i> and irony<\/i> (which can refer to many things, but in this context they\u2019re talking about saying the opposite of what you mean), so I checked my dictionary. And I was even more surprised to see this as the first definition of sarcasm<\/i>:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

The second definition is:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

(Both from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary<\/cite>.)<\/p>\r\n

Wikipedia<\/a> quotes several other sources along similar lines. For example, here\u2019s an excerpt from Dictionary.com:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

In sarcasm, ridicule or mockery is used harshly, often crudely and contemptuously, for destructive purposes.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

And here\u2019s Fowler:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

The essence of sarcasm is the intention of giving pain<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

All of those are very different from the way that I invariably hear the word used. I\u2019ve never heard anyone use the word sarcasm<\/i> to refer to a cutting insult that does say what it means, whereas I hear the word used all the time to refer to things that aren\u2019t cutting insults. The defining characteristic of sarcasm for me is what Wikipedia and my dictionary are calling irony<\/i>: that the surface meaning is the opposite of the underlying intended meaning. To me, sarcasm is not inherently or primarily about causing pain.<\/p>\r\n

Here are a couple of examples (added later, after posting), to clarify the distinction I\u2019m making:<\/p>\r\n

    \r\n
  • Say one person says to another, in a biting and nasty tone, \u201cYou\u2019re so slow that a snail could beat you in a race.\u201d My dictionary and the other sources quoted above would call that sarcasm, but I wouldn\u2019t.<\/li>\r\n
  • Say it\u2019s raining outside, and one person says to another, in a tone that suggests that they don\u2019t literally mean what they\u2019re saying, \u201cNice weather we\u2019re having.\u201d My dictionary would say that that\u2019s not sarcasm, because it\u2019s not intended to cut or insult. I would say that it is sarcasm, because it\u2019s a surface meaning that\u2019s the opposite of the underlying intended meaning.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n

    The reason I\u2019m especially bewildered by my dictionary\u2019s definition is that dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. The dictionary\u2019s definition is supposed to indicate the way that the word is commonly used. But I\u2019ve never seen the word used that way.<\/p>\r\n

    So now I\u2019m curious. Do you use the word sarcasm<\/i> to refer to any cutting insult designed to cause pain, regardless of whether its surface meaning is different from its underlying meaning? Or do you use it to refer to things that appear to say the opposite of what they mean, regardless of whether they\u2019re pain-causing insults? Or do you use it in some other way?<\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-specific-words"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18351,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346\/revisions\/18351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}