I wanted to start by saying what a
tremendous honor and a genuine pleasure
it is to be speaking with you today a
tremendous honor and a genuine pleasure
or to put it another way a tremendous
honor and a genuine pleasure and if you
haven’t worked it out by now I’m going
to be speaking to you about sarcasm you
may have noticed well in fact you’ve
been explicitly told that I’m English
this used to be a nationality now it’s
more of an apology and throughout
history the many things that have been
identified as the English disease skin
disease scrofula homosexuality during
the 19th century and more recently
football hooliganism well the good news
is scrofula is now easily treatable
homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed
of and football hooliganism even has
been transformed into a political
movement called brexit but the real
English disease in my opinion is sarcasm
it’s our less exotic version of malaria
when I moved to Latvia ten years ago I
really hoped that I could escape the
all-encompassing fog of English sarcasm
but to my dismay it seems to me that
I’ve acted as some sort of carrier for
this disease and that Latvians are
becoming more and more sarcastic so in
talking about it today I’m hoping really
to inoculate you against this pernicious
disease you’ve still got a chance this
all came to a head not long ago when I
was reading a review someone had written
of one of my really excellent books
which was on the whole quite a positive
review but at the end it was an online
review there was a comment section and
someone had written yeah but what sort
of thing does he write and the answer
really dismayed me the answer was he
writes sarcasm
well I was very very worried about this
because I was convinced that I wasn’t
writing sarcasm but I decided to have a
look at my writing and my speech and see
if I really was sarcastic so at this
point in a presentation is traditional
either to do some clicky stuff but the
good news is I can’t do powerpoints I’ve
only got two slides or to read out a
dictionary definition of the subject
that we’re talking about I’m a
traditionalist so I’m going to read out
the dictionary definition and looking at
dictionary definitions of sarcasm you
immediately hit one of the problem
problems which is that people give it
far more credit than it really deserves
they talk about things like satire irony
wit it’s my contention that satire that
sarcasm is not satirical it’s not witty
and it’s not particularly ironic it’s
something a lot cruder simpler and less
likeable than that but let’s turn to one
of the typical dictionary definitions
which is one of the better ones actually
sarcasm the use of remarks that clearly
mean the opposite of what they say made
in order to hurt someone’s feelings or
to criticize something in a humorous way
but even that’s a little bit strange
it’s something which is hurtful but
which is also humorous I think we need a
better definition of sarcasm there’s
very little academic literature been
produced about sarcasm the best thing
that I could find is a book published in
1998 by an academic called John Haines
it’s called talk is cheap Haines
considers all sorts of different
varieties of insincere language there’s
things like a euphemism understatement
overstatement banter politeness prayers
even just asking someone how are you in
the senses insincere language we’re not
really interested in their health we’re
just getting the social interaction
going but Haines has what I think is
pretty good definition of sarcasm
sarcasm is a particularly transparent
variety of cheap talk or hot air insofar
as the speaker is overtly meaning and
saying the opposite of what he or she
claims to be saying so it’s a game of
opposites black equals white good equals
bad but it’s also avoidance of meaning
you’re saying something which supposedly
is the opposite of your meaning but
you’re also denying your meaning at the
same time this is what puts sarcasm in a
category of its own compared to other
forms of insincere language it denies
its own content thus our caste which is
the technical term but I prefer Sark
assist because it sounds a little bit
funnier they only say what they do not
believe and this in my opinion cannot be
a healthy state of affairs now the first
thing we need to clear up is the
difference between sarcasm and irony
irony I think can reach into quite rich
and paradoxical areas of human
expression it can reach into self
deprecation it can reach into all sorts
of the areas of the absurd which sarcasm
with its black equals white good equals
bad it simply does not and hainan has a
very good sort of rubric here that we
can use for identifying whether
something is sarcastic or ironic
so situations can be ironic but only
people can be sarcastic
so let’s take an example you might say
this guy on the stage is cleverer than
the Rieger born philosopher sir isaiah
berlin you’d probably say it
sarcastically in order to hurt my
feelings so that’s sarcasm for irony I
could say well ironically a year ago I
was sitting exactly where you’re sitting
now on sir isaiah berlin day watching a
film about sir isaiah berlin which made
me realize how much cleverer he was in
me so sarcasm is present tense only
irony refers to some previous event or
previously established fact therefore I
would claim that irony is cleverer than
sarcasm just as Isaiah Berlin is
cleverer than me now one quotation that
everyone in the english-speaking world
at least knows about sarcasm is sarcasm
is the lowest form of wit and who said
it
allegedly oscarwild the man responsible
for saying 99% of all witty things ever
if you believe some people and also I
think the man largely responsible for
the identification of sarcasm with wit
which i think is unwarranted now a lot
of people know that quotation but very
few people know the second half of the
quotation which is sarcasm is the lowest
form of wit but the highest form of
intelligence there are a few variations
on that it’s one of these things that’s
attributed to wile but no one seems to
know exactly when or where he said it
but we won’t argue the point at the
moment the trouble with that statement
is on the one hand he’s probably being
sarcastic in which case it kind of
negates it
it sounds great again we have like
highest and lowest lowest form of wit
highest form of intelligence but when
you think about it as a real genuine
statement of belief it’s meaningless and
wild I think has been a form when it
comes to the use of sarcasm to sound
clever you just look at some of the
titles of some of his plays so you’ve
got woman of no importance which is
about a woman who’s quite important an
ideal husband about a husband who’s far
from ideal and his best-known play which
at least I’m going to use in this
presentation which is importance of
being earnest he’s most famous play
trouble of course is when he was
probably being sarcastic when he said it
and I’m not so I do think it’s important
to be earnest now now we know what
sarcasm is we need to know how to spot
it as we’ve already said it relies upon
the listener to qualify as sarcastic so
if I’m being sarcastic and you don’t
realize I’m being sarcastic I’m not
really being sarcastic I’m being a poor
communicator just like I’m being right
now so there are two basic forms of
identifying sarcasm there are linguistic
and demonstrative terms so linguistic
would be simply placing emphasis or
placing what’s called a tag at the
beginning or the end of an otherwise
quite obvious statement so I care about
that you could you could do the Wayne’s
World approach I care about that knot
you can switch the tag to the front I
suppose
I care about that or you can put it at
the front and the back in which case the
meaning becomes really confused
not that I care about that or anything
so basically any marker which draws
attention to the word spoken rather than
the actual meaning of the words will
tend to be interpreted sarcastically and
that’s why we find quotation marks when
they’ve been appropriately used there
another tag so amusing
so I care about that or welcome to
Latvia we hope you have a great holiday
the other type of tag which is commonly
used would be the demonstrative tag what
I call the demonstrative tag which is
like rolling your eyeballs winking so I
care about that I care about that I care
about that it’s like the Monty Python
nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more
annoying character he’s intensely
sarcastic and intensely annoying now
let’s take another example and explore
this symphony of sarcasm that’s at our
fingertips we’ll take another simple
statement what a great lecture this is
what a great lecture this is what a
great lecture this is what a great
lecture this is what a great lecture
this is so you can see we can place the
emphasis on pretty much any word there
and we get the sarcastic effect at least
is is sarcasm proof right or is it now
I’m having it hamming it up a bit in my
delivery but you get the idea and I
realize this is quite a lot to take in
at one go so I’ve ridden to the rescue
and I’ve come up with a formula an
equation of sarcasm Newton had his laws
of motion
Einstein had his beautiful theory of
relativity and now in a world first here
in Rieger Ted X’s you can be able to
tell your grandchildren that you were
here at the revealing of Colliers first
law of
Kasim s it’s quite simple s equals P
divided by I consists of L plus or minus
D where s is sarcasm P is the
proposition in the negative I is the
indicator consisting of L linguistic or
D demonstrative particles or both it’s
quite simple right there’s an even
easier way to remember it spilled
spilled I’m quite proud of that and I’ll
be getting some t-shirts printed which
would be available in the foyer
after the lecture thank you took a long
time so why am i anti sarcasm because we
Brits we’re supposed to love sarcasm
right well partly it’s because it’s
usually quite obvious and boring and
partly because it’s very addictive when
I looked at my writing after the comment
that I saw earlier on I saw that it to
my relief it wasn’t particularly
sarcastic I would say I would say it was
highly ironic but not sarcastic but my
conversation definitely was too
sarcastic for comfort sometimes Latvian
friends tell me that I’m sarcastic and
they mean it as a compliment I smile and
go along with it but the problem is the
sarcasm is essentially a form of lying
it’s a form of saying what you don’t
mean and if you replace the word sarcasm
with the word lying and make the same
sort of statements you get some unusual
results so for instance that’s good old
British lying he’s so funny when he lies
how would I describe his character in a
single word liar so you can see where my
problem is where I’m coming from on this
one but the biggest problem with the
extended use of sarcasm is that after a
while you stopping noticing that you’re
being sarcastic it gets even worse
because if you do want to say something
sincerely people won’t believe you when
you object to it so I’m I I do believe
that honestly and everyone will laugh
and say look he’s being sarcastic again
so if you’ve caught a dose of this
malarial sarcasm from
how do we treat it well I’ve got four
quick suggestions the first would be
sincerity simply saying what you mean
but this is quite problematic it’s kind
of the equivalent of making a drug
addict do cold turkey or hiding the
bottles from an alcoholic maybe it’s a
bit too hardcore to go into straightaway
a second approach would be citation if
you’re not sure of your own opinion or
just use someone else’s wit by which I
mean quote poetry scientists
investigators whatever you’ll probably
find your own opinion and belief about
something forming quite naturally as a
result a third alternative is
imagination just embrace the absurd you
don’t have to provide a boring answer to
a boring question you stand on your head
freak out anything rather than the tired
trick of sarcasm and finally something
that I would love to see come back is in
the 18th century dramatic technique of
the aside so where you’d have two actors
speaking on stage having a conversation
and they’d be turning to the audience
every now and again and saying what they
truly feel so for instance I might say
to you what do you think of my new book
and you would reply it’s like nothing
I’ve ever read because I haven’t read it
so is sarcasm always bad well not always
but it needs to be treated with caution
in Japanese culture is a mode of speech
called rule cuca nothing to do with
cakes which is used by young lovers when
they’re first getting to know each other
and they give each other sort of mild
insults to avoid the embarrassment of
genuine feelings of affection but this
is like a well-tended little bonsai
garden compared to the vast bleak
moorland of English sarcasm as far as
writers are concerned there are very few
who I think are able to deploy sarcasm
in an effective way but one of them is
of one of my heroes Jonathan Swift
incidentally was also the literary hero
of George Orwell not that I’m trying to
make you think Swift Orwell Collier
that’s
last thing on my mind now I’ll give you
an example of full strength
uncut Swiftian sarcasm from a poem
written in 1730 with the very sarcastic
title an excellent new ballad and for
anyone who thinks that Jonathan Swift is
a children’s writer and that Gulliver’s
Travels as a children’s tale you in for
a bit of a shock I’m afraid just absorb
these six lines of absolutely dripping
sarcasm well five lines of sarcasm which
set up the last line which is not
sarcastic and has real kick as a result
so an excellent new ballad our brethren
of England who love us so dear and in
all they do for us so kindly demean a
blessing upon them a census this year
for the good of our church a true
English Dean a holy a priest never was
wrapped up in crepe the worst you can
say he committed a rape it’s a swinging
indictment of a church which is moving a
sex offending priest from parish to
parish to avoid scandal well how do you
react to something like this well you
could write like Swift you could make a
film like spotlights or as I would
recommend you say what you really mean
and what you condemn so in conclusion
just say yes to sarcasm by which I mean
no it was a pleasure and an honor
speaking with you today thank you
[Applause]
tremendous honor and a genuine pleasure
it is to be speaking with you today a
tremendous honor and a genuine pleasure
or to put it another way a tremendous
honor and a genuine pleasure and if you
haven’t worked it out by now I’m going
to be speaking to you about sarcasm you
may have noticed well in fact you’ve
been explicitly told that I’m English
this used to be a nationality now it’s
more of an apology and throughout
history the many things that have been
identified as the English disease skin
disease scrofula homosexuality during
the 19th century and more recently
football hooliganism well the good news
is scrofula is now easily treatable
homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed
of and football hooliganism even has
been transformed into a political
movement called brexit but the real
English disease in my opinion is sarcasm
it’s our less exotic version of malaria
when I moved to Latvia ten years ago I
really hoped that I could escape the
all-encompassing fog of English sarcasm
but to my dismay it seems to me that
I’ve acted as some sort of carrier for
this disease and that Latvians are
becoming more and more sarcastic so in
talking about it today I’m hoping really
to inoculate you against this pernicious
disease you’ve still got a chance this
all came to a head not long ago when I
was reading a review someone had written
of one of my really excellent books
which was on the whole quite a positive
review but at the end it was an online
review there was a comment section and
someone had written yeah but what sort
of thing does he write and the answer
really dismayed me the answer was he
writes sarcasm
well I was very very worried about this
because I was convinced that I wasn’t
writing sarcasm but I decided to have a
look at my writing and my speech and see
if I really was sarcastic so at this
point in a presentation is traditional
either to do some clicky stuff but the
good news is I can’t do powerpoints I’ve
only got two slides or to read out a
dictionary definition of the subject
that we’re talking about I’m a
traditionalist so I’m going to read out
the dictionary definition and looking at
dictionary definitions of sarcasm you
immediately hit one of the problem
problems which is that people give it
far more credit than it really deserves
they talk about things like satire irony
wit it’s my contention that satire that
sarcasm is not satirical it’s not witty
and it’s not particularly ironic it’s
something a lot cruder simpler and less
likeable than that but let’s turn to one
of the typical dictionary definitions
which is one of the better ones actually
sarcasm the use of remarks that clearly
mean the opposite of what they say made
in order to hurt someone’s feelings or
to criticize something in a humorous way
but even that’s a little bit strange
it’s something which is hurtful but
which is also humorous I think we need a
better definition of sarcasm there’s
very little academic literature been
produced about sarcasm the best thing
that I could find is a book published in
1998 by an academic called John Haines
it’s called talk is cheap Haines
considers all sorts of different
varieties of insincere language there’s
things like a euphemism understatement
overstatement banter politeness prayers
even just asking someone how are you in
the senses insincere language we’re not
really interested in their health we’re
just getting the social interaction
going but Haines has what I think is
pretty good definition of sarcasm
sarcasm is a particularly transparent
variety of cheap talk or hot air insofar
as the speaker is overtly meaning and
saying the opposite of what he or she
claims to be saying so it’s a game of
opposites black equals white good equals
bad but it’s also avoidance of meaning
you’re saying something which supposedly
is the opposite of your meaning but
you’re also denying your meaning at the
same time this is what puts sarcasm in a
category of its own compared to other
forms of insincere language it denies
its own content thus our caste which is
the technical term but I prefer Sark
assist because it sounds a little bit
funnier they only say what they do not
believe and this in my opinion cannot be
a healthy state of affairs now the first
thing we need to clear up is the
difference between sarcasm and irony
irony I think can reach into quite rich
and paradoxical areas of human
expression it can reach into self
deprecation it can reach into all sorts
of the areas of the absurd which sarcasm
with its black equals white good equals
bad it simply does not and hainan has a
very good sort of rubric here that we
can use for identifying whether
something is sarcastic or ironic
so situations can be ironic but only
people can be sarcastic
so let’s take an example you might say
this guy on the stage is cleverer than
the Rieger born philosopher sir isaiah
berlin you’d probably say it
sarcastically in order to hurt my
feelings so that’s sarcasm for irony I
could say well ironically a year ago I
was sitting exactly where you’re sitting
now on sir isaiah berlin day watching a
film about sir isaiah berlin which made
me realize how much cleverer he was in
me so sarcasm is present tense only
irony refers to some previous event or
previously established fact therefore I
would claim that irony is cleverer than
sarcasm just as Isaiah Berlin is
cleverer than me now one quotation that
everyone in the english-speaking world
at least knows about sarcasm is sarcasm
is the lowest form of wit and who said
it
allegedly oscarwild the man responsible
for saying 99% of all witty things ever
if you believe some people and also I
think the man largely responsible for
the identification of sarcasm with wit
which i think is unwarranted now a lot
of people know that quotation but very
few people know the second half of the
quotation which is sarcasm is the lowest
form of wit but the highest form of
intelligence there are a few variations
on that it’s one of these things that’s
attributed to wile but no one seems to
know exactly when or where he said it
but we won’t argue the point at the
moment the trouble with that statement
is on the one hand he’s probably being
sarcastic in which case it kind of
negates it
it sounds great again we have like
highest and lowest lowest form of wit
highest form of intelligence but when
you think about it as a real genuine
statement of belief it’s meaningless and
wild I think has been a form when it
comes to the use of sarcasm to sound
clever you just look at some of the
titles of some of his plays so you’ve
got woman of no importance which is
about a woman who’s quite important an
ideal husband about a husband who’s far
from ideal and his best-known play which
at least I’m going to use in this
presentation which is importance of
being earnest he’s most famous play
trouble of course is when he was
probably being sarcastic when he said it
and I’m not so I do think it’s important
to be earnest now now we know what
sarcasm is we need to know how to spot
it as we’ve already said it relies upon
the listener to qualify as sarcastic so
if I’m being sarcastic and you don’t
realize I’m being sarcastic I’m not
really being sarcastic I’m being a poor
communicator just like I’m being right
now so there are two basic forms of
identifying sarcasm there are linguistic
and demonstrative terms so linguistic
would be simply placing emphasis or
placing what’s called a tag at the
beginning or the end of an otherwise
quite obvious statement so I care about
that you could you could do the Wayne’s
World approach I care about that knot
you can switch the tag to the front I
suppose
I care about that or you can put it at
the front and the back in which case the
meaning becomes really confused
not that I care about that or anything
so basically any marker which draws
attention to the word spoken rather than
the actual meaning of the words will
tend to be interpreted sarcastically and
that’s why we find quotation marks when
they’ve been appropriately used there
another tag so amusing
so I care about that or welcome to
Latvia we hope you have a great holiday
the other type of tag which is commonly
used would be the demonstrative tag what
I call the demonstrative tag which is
like rolling your eyeballs winking so I
care about that I care about that I care
about that it’s like the Monty Python
nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more
annoying character he’s intensely
sarcastic and intensely annoying now
let’s take another example and explore
this symphony of sarcasm that’s at our
fingertips we’ll take another simple
statement what a great lecture this is
what a great lecture this is what a
great lecture this is what a great
lecture this is what a great lecture
this is so you can see we can place the
emphasis on pretty much any word there
and we get the sarcastic effect at least
is is sarcasm proof right or is it now
I’m having it hamming it up a bit in my
delivery but you get the idea and I
realize this is quite a lot to take in
at one go so I’ve ridden to the rescue
and I’ve come up with a formula an
equation of sarcasm Newton had his laws
of motion
Einstein had his beautiful theory of
relativity and now in a world first here
in Rieger Ted X’s you can be able to
tell your grandchildren that you were
here at the revealing of Colliers first
law of
Kasim s it’s quite simple s equals P
divided by I consists of L plus or minus
D where s is sarcasm P is the
proposition in the negative I is the
indicator consisting of L linguistic or
D demonstrative particles or both it’s
quite simple right there’s an even
easier way to remember it spilled
spilled I’m quite proud of that and I’ll
be getting some t-shirts printed which
would be available in the foyer
after the lecture thank you took a long
time so why am i anti sarcasm because we
Brits we’re supposed to love sarcasm
right well partly it’s because it’s
usually quite obvious and boring and
partly because it’s very addictive when
I looked at my writing after the comment
that I saw earlier on I saw that it to
my relief it wasn’t particularly
sarcastic I would say I would say it was
highly ironic but not sarcastic but my
conversation definitely was too
sarcastic for comfort sometimes Latvian
friends tell me that I’m sarcastic and
they mean it as a compliment I smile and
go along with it but the problem is the
sarcasm is essentially a form of lying
it’s a form of saying what you don’t
mean and if you replace the word sarcasm
with the word lying and make the same
sort of statements you get some unusual
results so for instance that’s good old
British lying he’s so funny when he lies
how would I describe his character in a
single word liar so you can see where my
problem is where I’m coming from on this
one but the biggest problem with the
extended use of sarcasm is that after a
while you stopping noticing that you’re
being sarcastic it gets even worse
because if you do want to say something
sincerely people won’t believe you when
you object to it so I’m I I do believe
that honestly and everyone will laugh
and say look he’s being sarcastic again
so if you’ve caught a dose of this
malarial sarcasm from
how do we treat it well I’ve got four
quick suggestions the first would be
sincerity simply saying what you mean
but this is quite problematic it’s kind
of the equivalent of making a drug
addict do cold turkey or hiding the
bottles from an alcoholic maybe it’s a
bit too hardcore to go into straightaway
a second approach would be citation if
you’re not sure of your own opinion or
just use someone else’s wit by which I
mean quote poetry scientists
investigators whatever you’ll probably
find your own opinion and belief about
something forming quite naturally as a
result a third alternative is
imagination just embrace the absurd you
don’t have to provide a boring answer to
a boring question you stand on your head
freak out anything rather than the tired
trick of sarcasm and finally something
that I would love to see come back is in
the 18th century dramatic technique of
the aside so where you’d have two actors
speaking on stage having a conversation
and they’d be turning to the audience
every now and again and saying what they
truly feel so for instance I might say
to you what do you think of my new book
and you would reply it’s like nothing
I’ve ever read because I haven’t read it
so is sarcasm always bad well not always
but it needs to be treated with caution
in Japanese culture is a mode of speech
called rule cuca nothing to do with
cakes which is used by young lovers when
they’re first getting to know each other
and they give each other sort of mild
insults to avoid the embarrassment of
genuine feelings of affection but this
is like a well-tended little bonsai
garden compared to the vast bleak
moorland of English sarcasm as far as
writers are concerned there are very few
who I think are able to deploy sarcasm
in an effective way but one of them is
of one of my heroes Jonathan Swift
incidentally was also the literary hero
of George Orwell not that I’m trying to
make you think Swift Orwell Collier
that’s
last thing on my mind now I’ll give you
an example of full strength
uncut Swiftian sarcasm from a poem
written in 1730 with the very sarcastic
title an excellent new ballad and for
anyone who thinks that Jonathan Swift is
a children’s writer and that Gulliver’s
Travels as a children’s tale you in for
a bit of a shock I’m afraid just absorb
these six lines of absolutely dripping
sarcasm well five lines of sarcasm which
set up the last line which is not
sarcastic and has real kick as a result
so an excellent new ballad our brethren
of England who love us so dear and in
all they do for us so kindly demean a
blessing upon them a census this year
for the good of our church a true
English Dean a holy a priest never was
wrapped up in crepe the worst you can
say he committed a rape it’s a swinging
indictment of a church which is moving a
sex offending priest from parish to
parish to avoid scandal well how do you
react to something like this well you
could write like Swift you could make a
film like spotlights or as I would
recommend you say what you really mean
and what you condemn so in conclusion
just say yes to sarcasm by which I mean
no it was a pleasure and an honor
speaking with you today thank you
[Applause]
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