Bay 12 Games Forum

When I'm at work and not wanting to do work, I at least try to look as though I'm doing work.

Quote from: hector13 on December 02, 2017, 01:42:22 pm

Return Myrtle’s phone to her, pointedly ignoring Jay

“Here is your phone, señora.”

Accept the phone.

"Oh, thank you, sir." Myrtle sighs in relief as she takes the phone. "I was dreadfully worried. I do hope you got some good use out of it."

Ivan shrugs

“I did not have much oportunidad to use it, I think.”

Insure the hell out of everything and go on holiday during death-season.

Simples .

But you have no money for holidays because you’reninsurng the hell out of everything, and those premiums go up during/after death season, man.

Ivan just shakes his head

I think Interpol are more of a liaison thing between police forces of various nationalities.

I had no trouble detecting the sarcasm A Thing wrote - because context matters. The horned helmet thing is widely known to be a myth, so his ", right?" on the end alluded to the misconception itself. Asking for validation for a well known false statement is a deliberate give-away that you're being sarcastic. Showing that a comparable linguistic construct contains no irony or sarcasm misses the point. Sarcasm and irony rely on saying the opposite of what you really mean.

e.g. calling Abe Lincoln "one of the greatest Republican presidents of all time" vs calling Trump "one of the greatest Republican presidents of all time". Linguistically, they are as identical as the horned helmet vs the ship-shields. But one is clearly sincere while the other is clearly sarcastic. Context makes all the difference for sarcasm, and showing that a near identical statement lacks sarcasm isn't sufficient to disprove sarcasm.

Well the use of “right?” implies a rhetorical question, meaning the statement prior to it is either obviously true or obviously false. Given I don’t know A Thing, I don’t know whether or not they are aware of the well-travelled myth (in which Vikings in media are generally shown/described with horned helms to show they are Vikings) so was unaware of which state they meant the rhetorical question.

Didn’t expect two paragraphs of textual analysis on how irony works ah well. Irony doesn’t work well in a non-verbal medium, because there are no tonal or body language cues with which to discern whether or not the phrase is to be taken at face value or means the opposite of what was actually put down.

Get in the van