OT: Sarcasm and irony

[Georg Brandl]

Steve Holden wrote:

>> is that '....in America' meant to be an addendum to what I said, as in
>> this is the situation in America and not elsewhere? If so I should
>> probably point out that I am writing from Denmark and was thinking
>> specifically of a situation where a dane told me they were being
>> 'ironic' (when what they meant, obviously, was that they were being
>> ironical), when I asked what they meant by that they said "saying the
>> opposite of what I mean" I responded: "so, in other words, what you
>> mean by irony is 'sarcasm'" She responded "yes, that's what it means"
>> 
> Well, my assertion about America clearly doesn't preclude to possibility 
> of confusion on the part of the Danish too :-). You are right about the 
> general degradation of the (understanding of the) meaning of irony. 
> People are just too damned sloppy with language nowadays.

Let me tell you: There are times when I'm really glad that as a German, I'm
not supposed to possess any sense of humour at all.

warning-this-post-may-be-ironic-ly yours,
Georg