My sister, a fellow lawyer, has long advocated for a “sarcasm font,” especially for use in text messages and social media posts. But in casting around for something to post about today, I have an alternative proposal I discovered courtesy of Wikipedia: punctuation marks for sarcasm.
At some point in recent history (by which I mean after 1900), someone proposed adding the “snark mark” to the list of available punctuation marks. The name alone begs for the mark to be adopted, doesn’t it?
According to Wikipedia (what, you expected the efforts of a Rhodes scholar?), there are three versions of the “snark mark.” The first version is a period with a tilde behind it. That looks like “.~” and stands for dry sarcasm. The second version is an exclamation point with a tilde after it. Standing for enthusiastic sarcasm, it looks like “!~”. The final version of the snark mark is a question mark with a tilde behind it, which is shown as “?~” and is to be used with sarcastic questions.
While I like the extra shades of meaning provided with the “snark mark,” at some point in 2010 a Dutch publication suggested the use of a “SarcMark” to warn of sarcasm and irony. “Nieus leesetken warrshuwt voor sarcasme en ironie.” HLN.be, 18 October 10, 2010. The SarcMark reversed the spiral used in the “@” symbol but placed a period in the center of the spiral instead of an “a”. The figure below is the Wikimedia Commons' version of the SarcMark. It probably didn’t catch on because, unlike the “snark mark” family, it is not commonly available on word processing software.
A sarcasm emoji might be useful, but apparently the world at large has yet to settle on a single candidate, so that idea will go on held for now.
Still, the best sarcasm in writing, especially in novels, is sarcasm that the reader recognizes by context. It can add humor to the text in some situations or an edge in others.
How do you use sarcasm in your writing, if at all? And if anyone has an example of enthusiastic sarcasm, please let me know what it is; I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Learned something new today
ReplyDeleteMe, too!
DeleteYes, I did too. I'm not sure how useful the knowledge is, though!
DeleteWould a snark mark help those who become outraged by what should be obvious political satire and indignantly spread it as objectionable truth? I used to be on the email list of a fellow who did that, until he became tired of me pointing out that it was, in fact, satire, and cut me from the list. I imagine he is still spreading his quasi-information, I just no longer receive it.
ReplyDeleteIt might help if the person reading it understood what it was. But it sounds like your fellow just wanted to be indignant and wouldn't have cared anyhow?
DeleteOnly those insufficiently practiced at sarcasm need the training wheels of specialized punctuation.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point! And yet, there are some people who just don't get sarcasm. My daughter, at 23, still is learning when Mark and I are being sarcastic about something and when we're not.
DeleteI have never heard of these snark marks before and hope I haven't used them unknowingly.
ReplyDeleteI do use sarcasm and snark in my writing, but I generally use such works as "sneer" or "smirk" to show my reader the context.
I suspect there's a reason the "snark marks" never took off in general.
DeleteLove the snark marks, though doubt I'll ever use them. I use sarcasm in my writing, identified by words like haughty, all-knowing, or snide.
ReplyDeleteI doubt I'll ever use them either, but it was interesting to learn they even exist.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of the snark mark. I do use sarcasm, but I try to make it clear by context. Sometimes I'm more successful than others.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of it either, which is why I found it so interesting.
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