OT: Sarcasm and irony

[Max M]

bryan rasmussen skrev:

> Well irony originally started out as a very specific concept of the
> Ancient Greek drama, this is what we nowadays refer to as Dramatic
> Irony but it is the original irony. Irony then became a literary
> concept for plot elements similar to Dramatic irony in books, or a
> weaker type of the Dramatic irony found in the plays of Shakespeare.
> People then noticed that life was at times ironic in the literary
> manner.

Yes and in Rome "salary" meant getting a bag of salt. Concepts changes.


> Nowadays the use of the word irony has degenerated to by
> pretty much synonymous with sarcasm.

As a Dane that is a Chronic Ironic, I beg to differ.

In Denmark at least there is a lot of difference between irony and 
sarcasm. Irony is the main form of humor here, and danes takes to it 
easily. People being sarcastic we don't much like.

But I guess that it can be hard to se the difference for someone not 
used to irony.

I believe the reason that irony works here is that we have such a 
homogenous society. Somewhere like the US where the cultural differences 
are larger, it is probably a lot harder for irony to be taken as such 
and not as sarcasm.


-- 

hilsen/regards Max M, Denmark

http://www.mxm.dk/
IT's Mad Science