“I remember hearing her say stuff and figuring out that she didn't mean what she said,” says Walker, who leads the Natural Language and Dialogue Systems Lab at UC Santa Cruz. “She used to say ...

Q: I appreciate your distinguishing between definitions of sadism (e.g., clinical, colloquial). Another word I've wondered about is "sarcasm." I grew up thinking that "sarcasm" was like "sadism," ...

It’s funny how sarcasm is associated with humor. “To tear flesh like a dog,” is not a jolly image, but the word nonetheless derives from the Greek sarkazein, meaning just that. It evolved to mean “to ...

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines sarcasm as “a taunting, sneering, cutting or caustic remark,” while the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary–which calls itself the “one of the world’s most ...

The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm delivers the perfect bathroom reading material. Not that you give a crap, as the author might say. James Napoli, who bills himself on the cover as executive vice ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. A father and daughter were deep in discussion over breakfast at a diner. “That’s not irony, that’s sarcasm,” the father ...

Young children don't get sarcasm – but by the time they're teens, it can be their default mode. Here's what science tells us about the mental acrobatics behind that wry one-liner. If I were to tell ...

If you've ever been told to tone down your sarcasm, science might actually be on your side. While sarcasm often gets a bad rap as biting or mean-spirited, research suggests there's more to this ...