41–50 of 57 posts
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I'm referring to brogrammer/jock culture. Don't be so sensitive when people criticize sarcasm. A few women have written about the way some men communicate with each other can be alienating.
Sarcasm failure
Instead of avoiding sarcasm completely in the office, the research suggests sarcasm, used with care and in moderation, can be effectively used and trigger some creative sparks. Who really has the presence of mind and self control to use sarcasm with "care and moderation" when in the midst of a work-related social interaction? I think this is just a silly extrapolation to draw from the evidence presented. Sarcasm can…
There is the thought-dulling sarcasm common on the internet that is equivalent to preaching to the choir in reverse, "It's ok, congress is on it" or "Another cold day, so much for global warming." Similar is the the teenager's use of mocking sarcasm as a blunt act of defiance.
Then there is the playful language that makes the listener try to inhabit the mind of the speaker and likely does generate creative thought, such as the article's example “Pat, don’t work so hard!”
Finally, sarcasm can be used to express ideas that, if said bluntly, would be unacceptable. A boss can tell a recently-berated employee, "the customer is always right" as a way of commiserating with the employee without directly discrediting the customer. Or a coworker can say "Another good policy decision from management" and gauge the listener's reaction without directly revealing their own opinion.
Pinker on shared vs mutual knowledge, the value of ambiguity: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pinker/files/evolutionary_s...
One of the few lessons to stick with me from high school English was during the lesson on irony, when a student asked "Is sarcasm the same thing as irony?" and the teacher thought about it for a moment, before responding that, yes, it is, kind of, but it's the lowest form of irony. I really enjoy irony in life and in literature, so I try to avoid sarcasm as to not cheapen the fun of "higher" forms of irony (like fina…
One of my favorite old Usenet .sig lines.
Not directly related to the article but just to the topic: one of the biggest things for me to get used to when I moved from the UK to France earlier this year is the lack of sarcasm used/understood by French people. There's a couple of French people I know who get my sense of humour, for everyone else I have to conciously knock off what I think of as the UK part of my joking and keep it to "international-friendly hu…
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Humor, sure. But sarcasm comes by definition at the expense of an idea or another person. Thus I submit that the article has not adequately supported the argument that sarcasm can be helpful in the workplace.
"But sarcasm comes by definition at the expense of an idea or another person." Even to the extent that is true, which I could quibble with, the sarcasm can be at the sarcastic one's expense, as a form of self-deprecation, or it could be at the expense of a person not present and one who may not even properly-speaking exist. Sarcasm at a coworker's expense isn't wrong because it's sarcasm, it would be wrong because an…
Other than that bit, what you've written doesn't conflict with what I wrote. Even if sarcasm is used at the expense of nonexistent parties, it stands a reasonable chance of making those who don't know you well wary.
One illustration from my own life: I was very sarcastic as a younger person, but generally had no malicious intent. Once I thought I was getting along quite well with a girl, who was laughing at some of my sarcastic remarks. At the end of the evening, she stormed out of the room, upset after I made yet another sarcastic comment. This came to the great surprise of me and others in the group who knew me better. Here there was no evil intended on either side, yet sarcasm combined with the intrinsic difficulty in understanding another person created a very uncomfortable and socially destructive situation.
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> None of the examples in the song are actually ironic. (i.e. taking an action with the intention of causing A which actually prevents A [or vise versa]). Actually most (if not all) of the examples in the song are actually ironic. And the example given above is not the sole definition of irony (but could be an ironic situation). From the dictionary: (a) the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally…
It raining on your wedding day isn't ironic unless you're marrying an umbrella shop owner who has recently gone out of business. Being stuck without a spoon to stir your tea in a spoon factory would be ironic. It's like good advice you just can't take? No?
Rain on one's wedding day isn't by itself ironic (in England for example it would be par for the course, as it almost always rains anyway).
But it can be, under certain expectations (e.g. an expectation and preparations for a ceremony with nice weather, sudden rain ESPECIALLY on that day, when it was all well and sunny for weeks before, etc).
"Great" article.
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I have to argue against that. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for this secondary meaning: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result" . The situation of "ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife" is not "deliberately contrary" to "what one expects ". It may be contrary to what one wants ...but that's not the same thing...o…
And also let us not forget that dictionaries are not authoritative sources for word definitions of living languages, they are historical records. Words mean whatever their users intend. My favourite recent example of this is 'literally' which once meant "actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy" and has now come to also mean it's direct opposite: "in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually". Ironic.
>Words mean whatever their users intend.
Words mean whatever MOST users intend, sure. But that's not entirely arbitrary, and doesn't mean there's not also abuse.
E.g. there are also lots of of people who genuinely can't tell "their" from "they're". The English language isn't gonna change anytime soon to accommodate their usage of it.
>My favourite recent example of this is 'literally' which once meant "actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy" and has now come to also mean it's direct opposite: "in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually".
Yeah, that use has been included in dictionaries for a while -- and the use of "literally" to mean "virtually" goes back to even before Shakespeare.
In general modern dictionaries stay well on top of language trends. If there's a word usage that's not included yet, it's probably either a fad or too recent and constrained to deserve an entry (like "putting the p.... on the chainwax").
Another classic example, "awful" is said to originally mean "worthy of awe" back in the day...