(I'm not. But the title fits.)
The other day I saw a headline that said:
CLS Growth 'great' for Las Vegas
I have no idea what CLS is, or why or how it is growing, but I'm confused as to whether it truly is a good thing or not. Aside from my own views on unsustainable growth, the writer of the headline 1) used the word great and 2) used quote tags.
Someone truly needs to do a documentary on the evolution of sarcasm in the English language.
Why is it that the word great is so rarely used honestly? I'd say that ...oh, 80% of the time I hear someone say something is "great", they're being sarcastic.
And when did air quotes get assigned as the sarcasm body language signal du jour? And how? Also - the tone that one uses when they are speaking sarcastically. Everyone (except children, evidently. I read somewhere that children don't get sarcasm...so at what age is it learned?) ...everyone knows the sarcasm-tone. But someone had to be the first to use it. Who was that? And how did it catch on?
Huh. I just looked up wikipedia's entry on sarcasm, and apparently someone has written a book on the history of sarcasm - Leonard Rossiter, The Lowest Form of Wit - so I'll have to look into that.
Interestingly enough, in the wikipedia entry, the example they give of online sarcasm is "That's just great."
Huh.
In conclusion, this entry was absolutely 'great'. Really.
2 comments:
Do you have those signs along highways that say "Your Tax Dollars At Work"?
Every time I see those, I think the sign is being sarcastic. Because I have never heard anyone say "your tax dollars at work" without it being sarcastic.
Heh. I just wrote "searcastic." Searcaustic!
I also love when quotations are used for emphasis. It nearly always ends in entertainment.
I find it hard to believe that children don't 'get' sarcasm. I mean, maybe really young children who don't have a very firm grasp on the language. MAYBE. But all the kids I have known are so bright that it just seems impossible to me that sarcasm would be enough to stimy them. (I think that is incorrect usage of stimy. I don't care, though.)
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