{"id":21234,"date":"2020-07-05T00:44:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T00:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21234"},"modified":"2020-07-08T13:02:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T13:02:24","slug":"why-i-was-just-being-sarcastic-can-be-such-a-convenient-excuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-i-was-just-being-sarcastic-can-be-such-a-convenient-excuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘I was just being sarcastic’ can be such a convenient excuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roger J. Kreuz<\/a>, University of Memphis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

After President Donald Trump said<\/a> during his June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that increased testing was responsible for the surging number of infections, the condemnation of the inaccurate claim<\/a> was swift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Six days later, during a Fox News town hall, Sean Hannity asked Trump about those remarks on increased testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I jokingly say, or sarcastically say, if we didn\u2019t do tests we would look great,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

This seems to be a pattern. Two months earlier, the president had mused about the beneficial effects of injecting disinfectants into the body to combat COVID-19. After many health officials expressed their dismay, Trump repeatedly claimed that he was just being sarcastic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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That same month, after he misspelled \u201cNobel Prize\u201d in a tweet \u2013 writing it out as \u201cNoble Prize\u201d \u2013 he deleted the tweet<\/a> before falling back on on a familiar excuse: sarcasm.<\/p>\n

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What is it about sarcasm that makes it such a convenient excuse for people who are trying to distance themselves from what they\u2019ve said?<\/p>\n

As I describe in my recent book<\/a> on irony and sarcasm, most cognitive scientists and other language researchers think of sarcasm as a form of verbal irony. Both ways of speaking involve saying the opposite of what you mean. But the goals of irony and sarcasm are actually different.<\/p>\n

For example, if someone slowly intones \u201cWhat beautiful weather!\u201d on a cold and rainy day, it\u2019s clear they\u2019re speaking ironically about a disappointing state of affairs. In general, irony is used to provide commentary on unexpected and negative outcomes.<\/p>\n

Sarcasm, on the other hand, is most frequently used to disparage the actions of other people. If someone tells you that you\u2019re a real genius after you forgot to meet them for an important appointment, they clearly don\u2019t mean that you\u2019re mentally gifted. Simply put, irony is commentary, but sarcasm is criticism.<\/p>\n

That seems straightforward enough. But in actual practice, the line between irony and sarcasm is blurry and confusing. Many people assert they are being sarcastic when they are in fact being ironic, as in the previous example of the weather.<\/p>\n

The enlargement of the domain of sarcasm \u2013 at irony\u2019s expense \u2013 is a linguistic shift that has been going on for some time. In fact, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg called attention to this phenomenon 20 years ago<\/a>. So it\u2019s hard to fault the president for conflating the two.<\/p>\n

Another element that makes sarcasm tricky to grasp has to do with saying the opposite of what is meant. The recipient of such a statement isn\u2019t supposed to take it literally.<\/p>\n

For this reason, when we use verbal irony or sarcasm, we might employ cues to signal our nonliteral intent<\/a>. We may, for example, speak in a tone of voice that\u2019s slower, lower and louder than how we speak normally. Our pitch may swoop up or down. Ironic statements are also frequently accompanied by facial displays, such as a smirk or the rolling of the eyes.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why, when being sarcastic over text or email, we\u2019ll use emojis to relay nonliteral intent<\/a>. Of course, even then, there\u2019s no guarantee that the recipient will interpret the message correctly.<\/p>\n

President Trump does, at times, clearly make use of sarcasm. For example, at a December 2019 rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania<\/a>, he said, referring to the House\u2019s imminent decision to initiate impeachment proceedings, that the Democrats \u201calso understand poll numbers, but I\u2019m sure that had nothing to do with it.\u201d He signals sarcasm by using absolute words like \u201csure\u201d and \u201cnothing\u201d and by gesturing broadly with both hands. He also pauses to give his audience a moment to interpret his remark as the opposite of what he has said \u2013 that, in fact, \u201cmy high poll numbers have everything to do with impeachment.\u201d The remark is sarcastic because there\u2019s a clear target: the Democrats in Congress.<\/p>\n