July 29, 2021 • 43 mins
In this episode, we get to the bottom of why people sometimes talk like jerks some and how sarcasm isn’t all bad. Stand back everybody, this one is just soooo great.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Dave Kustin's in here with us.
I just heard him laugh and snicker to himself, which
(00:22):
is always a heartwarming sound. And it's as he mispronounced
his name. No, no, I said it right. Couston thought
it was Coustan. No, that's what you wanted to sound
like when you're French. No, this is Couston, like Houston exactly,
but with the sea instead of an h. Couston means
that I'm one day closer to you. What. That's a song, right,
(00:46):
Houston means that I'm one one step. That's a country jam. Okay,
I was gonna guess Dion Warwick. She always like singing
about about Susan, Yeah, about San Jose at cetera. Okay,
that was a Backer act Burt Backer act song. Um,
and she popularized it because she did it so well.
(01:09):
Do you know the way to San Jose? Okay, I
didn't know she's saying that. Oh yeah, I guess she
popularized it with everyone but you. Okay, that was sarcastic. No,
that was that was pretty straightforward direct sarcastic would have
been like, um, oh, I'm sure you didn't know that. Yeah,
(01:31):
I guess that would be sarcastic. It wouldn't have made
much sense, but yes, you know what's funny, chuck in.
In researching this, I kept trying to come up with
um examples of sarcasm, and it's one of the hardest
things in the world to do with with thought. Sarcasm
is like almost always off the cuff or not very
(01:53):
well thought out. It's which which um, I think is
one reason why you know, most people will agree that
somebody who is an employing sarcasm, even when they're not
very good at it, is the funniest person in the world.
Right then, see that's sarcasm. I I can't help myself. Yeah,
this researching sarcasm really makes you take a long, hard
(02:17):
look in the mirror, doesn't it. It really does, and
at people who are big fans of Deadpool. Oh I
do like Deadpool. Uh, here's my ideal with sarcasm. It
is laying ones. I mean I definitely can be sarcastic.
I think all of us can be, and I think
it can be used for funzies but I definitely see
(02:39):
where I can be a real a hole sometimes by
being sarcastic, like to Emily. And that's like the sort
of that goes back to my end. Boy, I'm sort
of revealing some stuff here, but that it falls under
the umbrella of of my communication issues instead of being
like straightforward with something may be being sarcastic but passive
(03:01):
aggressive and me and and sarcasm all kind of go
hand in hand. I think, Yeah, so you've hit upon
something that I think is not really necessarily obvious to
just anybody when they are confront of a sarcasm. Is
that No, sarcasm is a way to hide. It's a
way to hide from emotions. It's a way to hide
from direct conflict if you're not um big into conflict.
(03:24):
It's a way to hide from criticizing somebody when you're
not big into that but you really need to or
you want to. And you said it it's passive aggressive.
But I think we should make the distinction. And I
I um came across this very late in research, but
it makes a lot of sense to me that there's
a distinction between sarcasm and verbal irony, and that sarcasm
(03:50):
is at its core, insulting, mocking, harmful, and hurtful, whereas
verbal verbal irony is just basically like a joke where
no one gets insulted, where where maybe a situation is
being made fun of, Like if it's exactly if it's
(04:13):
raining cats and dogs, yes, that would be verbal irony,
not sarcasm. Um. I saw a really great example about
the distinction on I can't remember. It was like a
TV and film writing website, but they basically said, in
that sense, that would be verbal irony. But if you
were the spouse of a meteorologist who for forecast a
(04:34):
sunny day when they came home and it was raining
cats and dogs, and you said, great weather today, that
would be sarcasm because you're insulting or mocking them for
getting it wrong. Right, Like, let's say you and I
are neighbors. Great weather today, Josh, Oh you said it
their neighbor. Hey, I can speak for myself, Oh you
(04:56):
said it there, neighbor. Different than Hey, nice job with
your front lawn, Josh, and I sank swimming under you.
You're the six year old that takes everything literally exactly
because I have, uh, I have noticed that. What made
me think of sarcasm. You picked this article, but I
(05:17):
was like, that's kind of perfect because having a kid
will make you realize how often you're sarcastic because they
don't get it, at least not yet. She's uh, just
during six same days you happy birthday, Yeah, happy birthday,
Ruby too, and very sweet gifts that you sent, and
you guys exchange the video messages, which was adorable. But um,
she's six and she still doesn't get sarcasm. And I've
(05:39):
had to say like that was sarcasm and she's like
what And I'm like, man, why just keep that purity
alive of them taking things literally? Yeah, yeah, don't don't
introduce sarcasm to your kid, but you can't help it. No,
And that's the thing, Like, there's there's a whole school
of thought that it's like to heck with sarcasm, Like
we don't need it. People who use sarcasm are annoying,
(06:02):
insecure people. Um there, it's it's not a nice thing
to do or say, like there's better ways of getting
your point across, and it's not even particularly funny. But
the thing is is I've found that when you follow
that thread, there's like something inherently problematic with it, and
that there is some value to sarcasm in some some instances.
(06:25):
It's just one of those things that should be wielded
very delicately and infrequently in the right context. But if
you do it like that, sure, and if you do
it like that though, it can be um very useful
and actually some studies have found um that it's actually
beneficial brain wise too. Although researching all of the sarcasm
(06:46):
stuff has just reiterated my um my belief that social
psychology as a field should be completely dissolved and they
should just start from scratch again because it is almost
exclusively useless. It is so bad. We should have a
every time you go off on social psychology, we should
have a sound effect. We would just start employing again,
(07:10):
just get that part. We should hire a barbershop quartet,
just full time to stand behind us. Made up was
exclusively as social psychologists exactly who can also sing the
sweet sweet tunes? So Webster's defines, Um, that's a great start,
chuck Uh. It's actually the Oxford English Dictionary if you
want to go back to the original definition, which I
(07:33):
think it is useful. We don't love to read definitions,
but its first definition was a sharp, bitter or cutting
expression or remark, a bitter jibe or taunt. And the
word itself even derives from ancient Greek from to tear flesh,
gnash the teeth, and speak bitterly. So it seems like
from the beginning sarcasm was not like a nice and
(07:56):
and super funny thing for people. Know, And apparently the
ancient Greeks um had their own famous sarcast and Socrates
who was um known for what's now known as sark
Socratic irony, which is terrible where basically you play dumb
uh when you're talking to somebody in order to kind
of get their true opinion out about something, and then
(08:18):
you destroy their opinion and you suddenly become intelligent and
destroy their opinion. It's a terrible, terrible thing to do.
But apparently Socrates was well known for that kind of thing,
so much so that they named it after him. That's right.
He it's called the how how about them? Apple's approach? Right?
Um Interpreting sarcasm, That's that's where it gets tricky because
(08:41):
and that's why a six year old and we'll get
two kids more because and some people say that by
that age they can detect sarcasm. But we'll get to that. Um.
I'm glad that that my daughter can't yet because that
means that she's not a jerk yet. But as far
as picking up on these clues, you, the words themselves
you can't rely on. So what you're looking for? Other
(09:03):
kinds of clues uh that are myriad um. One of
which is obviously the tone of voice. Uh. Let's say
you can't even see the person. If you see someone
say great weather today, like you, you know without even
looking out the window, that that probably means it's it's
raining or something. Yeah, I don't even need to look.
(09:25):
They just saved you the effort, right. And some people
say that that's a nasal tone. Uh. This kind of
seemed a little hinky to me, But some researchers have
said that there's a connection between that, um, sarcasm and
extreme disgust, and that's why it comes out nasally, like
you're trying to expel something through like your mouth and
your nose. Great weather, like your nose wrinkles. I guess
(09:49):
a little bit I can see maybe. Uh. And then
of course their physical cues like a a good eye
roll or at least like looking up when you say
something is a big, big clue. Yeah, that one in
particulars because your brain is going haywire because you're saying
the opposite of what you mean. And researchers have concluded
that that looking up, which kind of looks like an
(10:11):
eye roll, is actually processing difficulty. Your brain was like,
I don't know what, dude, You just make the eyes
look up while I try to figure out what I'm
doing here. That that's that. Yeah, there's social psychology is
big contribution. Um. As far as the intonation, uh, there's
some researchers that have called that inverse pitch obtrusion, which, uh,
(10:36):
great weather is if it was really great weather, you
would say great weather today. Huh. And if not, you'd
say great weather. So your your tone and your intonation
goes down as a clear signal of sarcasm. Yeah, which
supposedly intonation or pitch um inverse pitch obtrusion is um
pretty universal as far as languages go. Are different cultures
(10:58):
because other cultures are sarcastic just American, No, And there's
a big there's a big debate online about whether it's
a universal whether sarcasm is universal, and some people are
saying like, yes, it's everywhere, like even if a culture
has a taboo against it, which some could, although I
couldn't find which ones. Um, although I think China has
widely pointed to is a not a very high sarcasm culture. Um.
(11:24):
But that if you have if your culture has a
taboo against sarcasm, you have to be aware of sarcasm
to have a taboo against it. So it's still in
that sense universal, even if it's not universally used or
accepted by each culture. Yeah, for sure, I could see
Japan is not being super sarcastic. So I read an
article about Japan. It was like a business writer's um experience,
(11:48):
like a British expat working in Japan, and he said
he used sarcasm and like he didn't really get much
laugh much of a laugh, And later on he said
he was explaining it to his Japanese call colleague was like, oh,
I know it was sarcasm. We we know all about sarcasm.
Grossly inappropriate to use it. Right then I think I
(12:09):
was like, oh god, I love it. Oh we know
what sarcasm is. That just that was just not good. Sorry.
Another thing you can do is elongate your words. Um,
it's much difference to say oh sorry than to say sorry, Yes,
that's a great, great one. That's intonation and elongating a word.
(12:31):
I guess combined with that eye roll, you can also
go the opposite way and take a word that should
be said kind of um with oomph and deflating it.
Yeah right, I'm big. I'm big on that one, like, um,
like wow, yeah great. I say that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we we We are very sarcastic people. I've come to realize.
(12:54):
I use for some reason. I know you didn't see
Fletch and you hate Chevy Chase, but I well you no, no,
I'm sorry. I love Yeah, He's my favorite. He's so funny. Um.
I will would use a line from his flag occasionally. Um.
I don't know why I would use it. I guess
whenever there was a cop or something, I would say,
(13:16):
thank God the police. And he says that line like
that in the movie. Yeah, I can. I can totally
see it wearing a baseball cap too, I'll wager m hmmm,
probably maybe. Uh. You mentioned other cultures. Um, if you're
a teacher of Esaul, English is a second language that
is one of the trickier parts of teaching English to
(13:38):
UH people as a second language, as adulter as kids
even is is trying to teach them things like sarcasm
if they're not super familiar with it. And sometimes apparently
they will say, here, watch watch this TV show because
you know, there's quite a bit of sarcasm on TV sitcoms. Yeah,
supposedly that's a really good way to pick up on
(14:00):
on sarcasm is watching sitcoms. Probably Friends in particular, I
would guess. I'm guessing they assigned Friends a lot to
be any more sarcastic. So, Chuck, this is kind of
a willy nilly episode, and I kind of like them
that way. I'm just gonna go ahead and confess. So
there's no clear place where we should put an AD
break in, So I suggest that we put an AD
(14:22):
break in right about here. That's a great idea. Stuck, Stuck, Stuck.
I don't know that you know it. Stuck in this.
(14:45):
It's a great name. That's the name of it. It's
a great name, alright, stuck with a with an X.
You know. I have to say, when I was researching this, Chuck,
I was wondering if we were gonna just do the
weird thing in not be sarcastic. I just think that
that was there was never gonna happen, was it. No,
(15:07):
I think it's it was clear from the beginning to
me that we were gonna throw our own little brand
of sarcasm in. I can't help it, chunk, I can't
tell if you're being straight. I can't either. So we're
talking about kids, um and whether or not they understand sarcasm.
And there's been um some research on this kind of thing, um,
(15:30):
and of course it's come up with contradictory findings. One
thing I saw was that kids you kept mentioning six
year old's not really getting sarcasm. That's about when they
start to pick it up somewhere around age six. That's
when they start grade school. Okay, do with it, maybe so,
But but from what I saw, they might recognize it
(15:51):
as sarcasm. They just don't understand it as a way
to employ humor. And that that comes at about age ten,
which happens to coincide when kids become obnoxious. Uh yeah,
and then it's all then you reap what you sow
as a parent because you're like I taught you this
method and UH, it's being used used against me like
(16:15):
a weapon. There was a study in France French speaking
kids in two thousand five that showed UH kids the
age of five understood sarcasm when they when the sarcastic
speaker was using intonation um. Where it took to be
over seven to be able to tell by context, and
(16:37):
context is when like I think the example they used
in the article was if you're like having a longer
conversation about UH family member being a bad gift giver,
and then at the very end you say, but I
love my sweater that they got me, and maybe see,
like I said it even sort of regular, but contextually
(16:58):
it would still be sarcastic. I don't know, Like even
in that example, I just found it confusing to tell you. Well,
I guess it could be I was a little too
I sold it too well. It sounded yeah, it sounded
really genuinely earnest. Right, that's the slip. That's the slippery
SLOPO sarcasm, so um one of the other uh. In
addition to kids not necessarily getting sarcasm, people with dementia
(17:20):
or Alzheimer's um or brain lesions have been found to
not necessarily, um, get sarcasm. And if you stop picking
up on sorry sarcasm all of a sudden, Uh, that's
a really good indicator that you might need to go
get an m R. I too sweet, Yeah for sure. Uh.
And not just that, they are all kinds of neurodiversities
that people can have that make them not able to
(17:43):
pick up on sarcasm. I know that sometimes people with
autism have difficulty understanding sarcasm. Um. They might take things
a little more literally then uh, neurotypical people might. So
it's you know, you gotta know who you're dealing with, um,
when you're throwing sarcasm around and being sensitive that kind
of thing, right for sure. So um, So people with
(18:06):
autism are famously kind of associated with an inability to
detect sarcasm. And from what I've seen, that's not really
the best way to put it. That they that many
people with autism can detect a detect sarcasm, use sarcasm um,
some find it funny, Others can recognize it but don't
(18:27):
necessarily find it funny. Um. But there's different I don't
know if they're competing or not. There's different theories as
to why that's the case. It supposedly UM. People with
autism tend to use more literal thinking than UM. The
kind of UM, well, let me just say, sarcasm is
(18:47):
known as a form of unplaine speaking, along with some
other kinds like UM forced politeness, where you like, are
nice as somebody who who's got you hate UM are
using aphorisms UM or ritual language like when you say
I'm fine when somebody asks you how you're doing, even
though you're not fine. UM. Sarcasm falls under that. It's
(19:08):
it's not saying what you mean directly. And so if
people with autism tend to use direct thinking and literal thinking,
if you use indirect or unplane speaking, it's gonna be
hard for them to pick up on. They're gonna take
it at its literal meaning, they might not pick up
on the sarcasm um. And so that that kind of
(19:28):
tend that UM tendency to think literally combined with UH
an undeveloped theory of mind, which is where you can
put yourself in the other person's shoes and imagine what
they're thinking easily, which is what sarcasm requires you to do,
because they're saying something different, but you know that's not
what they mean, and that requires that you go into
their mind and tool around. Those two things combined tend
(19:52):
to explain why people with autism are kind of thought
of as not detecting sarcasm. You got a job, Okay, thanks? Thanks.
If I had rainbow suspenders on right now, I would
have just snapped him after them. I actually had those
when I was a kid. I wanted those for a
long time. Yeah, I mean it was the whole Mork
(20:14):
and mindy thing. I even had the buttons on them,
and I wore the khaki pants. I did my best
to beat work from work. Yeah, so Morks suspenders are
obviously primo. But there's an overlooked vest, a puffy vest
that he wears in the credits when they're on the
football field that I would say even top the rainbow suspenders.
(20:35):
I would love to get my hands on that. Yeah,
looking back, I was just trying to be in work
from work, but I was dork from dork. I don't
have any pictures of that, unfortunately. Can you mention wearing
those with like a spinning bow time like now? No,
especially as a kid like I don't know about this guy,
(20:58):
but this kid wearing that you'd be all right, Uh,
if you're talking about the brain. That was a study
in two thousand five that, um, and this kind of
stuff is always I feel like we just have to
say it, even though people are like, Okay, those are
the three parts of the brain. Thinks nothing to me.
But the three parts the language cortex and the left hemisphere,
(21:20):
the frontal lobes and the right hemisphere and the right
the right ventro medial prefrontal cortex. You're gonna hear the comment,
and your language cortex kicks in and understands the literal
meaning great weather. Right. Then the frontal lobe and the
right hemisphere have the context it's raining. And then that
(21:41):
right ventro medial prefrontal cortex puts the two together and
it goes sarcasm dummy, right, and the laugh region goes
bananas down the laugh region. It's sometimes it can be funny,
but it's you've got to really be good at it.
So um, Chuck, I was talking about how sarcasm qualifies
as unplane speaking. That's like the general umbrella that it
(22:03):
falls under, right, Um, and that the fact that it
is unplaine speaking where you can get a message across
just as easily directly saying the weather sucks today. What
is the point then, of using sarcasm, of saying great
weather today rather than this weather sucks today. Um. There,
(22:25):
and so linguists, researchers, um, you know, speech scientists, talkie doctors,
all these people together have have come up with this
idea that there must be some additional thing that's going
on there. Clearly that there is something gained by using
sarcasm over using the direct message that gets the same
(22:49):
point across, because sarcasm has got a little extra mustard
on it, and they've tried to get to the bottom
of exactly what that mustard is. And I'm sorry to
use mustard. I know you don't like it very much. Yeah.
And by the way, my dog might actually be barking
some in this episode and there's just nothing I can do,
and I think that makes it folcasy. We usually trying
to edit that out. But well, to see, um, there
(23:11):
are a couple of ideas on why people do it. Um,
Like when it's a purposeful thing and not just like
I'm trying to be funny or whatever. Um. Sometimes well,
sometimes it could just be as easy as like you
have a very hard time being straightforward with someone, and you,
like you said, you use it to high, to use
it as a defense or something like that, Um, cloaking
(23:33):
something in a positive term. Oh, you did a really
great job with that episode, Josh. Um. That's sarcastic criticism,
whereas you can do the exact opposite. Uh, if you
and I were out. Um. I mean the example that
use in the article is fishing and I'm not catching
any fish and you're just like catching tons of fish.
(23:53):
I'm like, oh boy, you're really you really suck at
that fishing thing. That is a sarcastic compliment. And this
is all wrapped up under what's called the Tinge theory
of sarcasm, which is you're you're trying to mute either
your criticism or your praise of somebody by throwing like
slapping that mustard on it. Yeah, by tinging it with iron.
(24:15):
Hence the name. Right. There's also like a related one
that really just kind of looks at them the criticism
part um. It's called politeness theory, and it basically just
says that we use sarcasm to criticize because it makes
the criticism more palatable. And so you put that together,
and that is one interpretation of what sarcasm is. Therefore,
(24:35):
it's meant to boost, it's meant to mute either the
compliment or the praise or the criticism. But then there's
another one that's that basically says the exact opposite, that
sarcasm is meant to be like more biting, that it's
meant to really make the mustard spicy and put it
right near your eye. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.
(24:57):
I think, I mean, get the value somewhat of using
sarcasm rather than God, if you're just straightforward about everything,
it's like it's sort of borish. Like if let's say
you're you were with the friend who you're hanging out
and your friend is always talking over you and you
don't get a chance to get a word in edgewise,
(25:18):
and you made a little sarcastic dig in front of
people like like, oh no, I'm sure they're gonna let
me speak any minute now. That person would go, all right,
I see what you're saying, Like it may be a
little bit of an a whole sarcastic comment. But what
if someone was always just like pulling you aside and
being like you just never let me speak, and it
(25:39):
would just really like, I think there are times to
be straightforward, but like that, but if you're like that
all the time, it's like, God, no one's gonna be
around you either yeah, or or even if you didn't
pull him aside at the table, if you were like, shuck,
I'm sorry, but it's my turn to speak. You you're
not letting me speak, so I'm going to speak now. Really,
just like straightforward happened to say, Yeah, that's gonna just
(26:02):
like just gonna be a record scratching. Like you said,
no one wants to hang out with you. And that's
what I was talking about the outside of this that
it's like the idea of just getting rid of sarcasm altogether,
there's something inherently wrong with that, because if use correctly,
sarcasm is a it's a social lubricant that just keeps
the party going. Yeah, totally, because at least everyone gets
a laugh. It might be at their expense a little.
(26:24):
They get the message, and you don't like stop the
fund of the party by make having a real serious
talk about interrupting people and then starting your point that's right, yeah,
and then everyone wants to hear what you gotta say, right. So,
so the other idea is that sarcasm is used to
make criticism more biting. That it's basically like this this.
(26:45):
If I did just say, you know, um, uh, you
know you didn't screw that up. Or no, if I said,
you know, Josh, you really screwed this episode up, I
can't even criticize you hypothetically. I'm sorry. If you said
to me, Josh, you really screwed this episode up, um,
(27:06):
I would be like, oh, well, go sit on it, Chuck.
But if you said, boy, you didn't screw that episode
up at all, Josh, I would be leveled for months, basically.
And I think that's what that interms. That's what that
theory is, the rival theory to Tinge theory, that that
it actually gives an even more emotional impact to criticism
(27:27):
than otherwise would have directly. Yeah, and I think not
to get too personal, but I think you and I
as partners have learned to deal with each other a
little more straightforwardly over the years that I think that's
how we both prefer to be handled by each other
as and that's with us, like it's different. For it's
not like I can be super sarcastic with other people,
(27:48):
but I know that that wouldn't be a very nice
thing to do to you. Does that make sense? Sure,
it makes sense. I think that you can be sarcastic
with me. Well I can't give it a try. Come on,
you got uh? I could be. I can be. Just
(28:09):
held their breath there, like is he about to level Josh?
I don't know. I can be, And I am sarcastic
with you, but only in like fun ways, like I
would know never a no now to not make try
and make a real point with you. I see, I
see what you mean. Yeah, And and they have like
a real conversation if it's really yeah, yeah, okay, I
got you, I got you? Sure yeah, oh so chuck.
(28:32):
The other thing about this, too, is there's a there's
another theory. It's like, no, this is everybody you're just overthinking.
This is just humor. Like people are dressing up and
otherwise boring or pedestrian point that they want to get
across with with just a little bit of humor. And
it's like sarcasm is an easy way to use humor.
Oscar Wilde said it was the lowest form of wit,
(28:53):
but the highest form of intelligence, and that second part,
I think he was referring to the fact that it
it takes some something and to make a sarcastic comment,
and it also takes them thinking to decode it too.
But it's not necessarily funny. Right, But that is supposedly
the humor, and it is another theory for why we
use sarcasm, that it's just it's just humor. And I
(29:15):
think from researching all this, all of those makes sense.
And social psychology, in typical fashion, has found um findings
that support all of them and none of them at
the same time. Should we take a break? Sure, all right,
let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit about
that and a little bit of the use of it
throughout history and culture and arts and stuff like that.
(29:39):
Right after this. Stuck Stuck. I don't know that you
know it's stuck Stuck. It's a great name, that's the
(30:03):
name of it. It's a great name. Alight with with
an X. All right. If you want to talk uh literature,
you can't get any more sarcastic at times than Mark
twain Um. Shakespeare was pretty sarcastic at times, Chaucer was
fairly sarcastic at times. They used an example in this
(30:24):
article of the Bible that I didn't read as sarcasm.
I thought it was a bit of a stretch myself,
and we'll go ahead and read it. This is from
Ecclesiasts eleven nine. Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and
let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood.
And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires
of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you
(30:46):
to judgment for all these things. That feels more just
sort of like a one to joke than sarcasm, I guess. So, yeah, yeah,
I think they were like, there's got to be something
in here, and that's the best they could come up with. Maybe,
like we gotta find some sark them in the Bible, guys.
Get um. The thing is with that, like that kind
(31:06):
of reveals like the one of the problems with sarcasm
is that when it's just written, especially it's written a
couple of thousand years ago, it's really difficult to discern sarcasm.
You have to use whatever cues you can get because
you've had a lot of the normal cue stripped, like
all those facial expressions, the intonation um, all of that stuff.
(31:28):
Is gone, and now it's just the printed words, so
basically what you have as context. Um. And for that
reason and because we are entering I guess we've already
entered this digital age where like the written word is
basically how we convey thoughts. Now, sarcasm has really taken
a beating lately because um, study after study keeps finding
(31:52):
that people grossly over overestimate how clearly their sarcasm is
coming through in like texts and tweets and emails and
stuff like that, and that it actually isn't being understood
as sarcasm on the other end, even though the person
who's sending the email or text thinks they're sarcasm is
(32:13):
clear as a bell. Yeah, just don't try to be
sarcastic in emails, especially for work. I think it's just
a good rule. It's like, don't even try because it's
not going to come through. And like you said, you
probably think it does. It's not obvious to other people.
If you're texting with friends and stuff, you can you
(32:33):
can do things like overspell things like say great or
you know, say insert the I roll emoji or even
say sarcasm in parentheses or something like that. The one
I've seen. It's the backslash s yeah. I mean that's
definitely no backslash. Which one is it? It's one of
(32:54):
the slashes. It's a backslash followed by an say so
backslash s um. Because you know, for the first I
don't I remember. For for the first few years of
like social media and texting and stuff like that, there
was a lot of talk about like how do we
indicate sarcasm and uh, and the emojis kind of help
(33:17):
solve that problem, but you can't do that in emails,
like professional emails. You're not gonna send an emoji I
roll emoji. No, don't do it. Okay, you might as
well put three exclamation points at the end of that's great.
Are we not doing that either? This is why I
don't email anybody. I don't know what I'm doing. But
(33:37):
when I do email them, it's at like ten o'clock
on a Saturday night. One of the cons of sarcasm um.
You know, it's, like you said, you can use it
and employ it in certain certain circumstances, but there are
people who just think it is a hostile act and
it is a way to say something and also let
(34:00):
yourself off the hook for saying that thing at the
same time, and that it is hostility veiled as humor,
is what uh how they put it in this article,
and you know, at times it very much can be that. Yeah.
So the UM like marriage counselors, um uh therapists, like
basically anybody who's who's dedicated to improving you as a
(34:23):
person in exchange for money, UM has kind of zeroed
in on the worst version of sarcasm. The the very
strict definition of sarcasm is not verbal irony, but as
an insult, as mocking somebody, as it being veiled hostility,
Like you're saying passive aggressiveness, that kind of thing, and
that that is no way to communicate, especially with somebody
(34:44):
that you care about or love, that you should be forthright, direct,
honest with them. They're not saying, like, you know, make
sure you cut out humor. They're basically saying, sarcasm isn't humor,
and if you if you think it's humor, like seriously,
like like, just go find better humor because there's plenty
of better stuff out there. He's right, and they so
(35:04):
they're they're basically saying, like kind of just cut that
out of your interpersonal relationships, at least again with people
you care about, because it probably does mask passive aggressiveness
and it's not doing anything but harming your your relationship.
And in fact, John Gottman UM, who is a very
(35:25):
renowned couples therapist and his wife are together, UM says
that UM sarcasm is one of the indicators of contempt,
along with eye rolling, along with like raising a lip
like kind of in disgust while you're talking. That that
if you pickiece together, that you you are signaling that
you have contempt for your significant other, and that contempt
(35:48):
is one of the He calls them the four horsemen
of UM of a marriage. That it's a it's a
really good predictor of divorce when couples speak to each
other with contempt, and one of those ways that they'll
speak to each other with contempt is through sarcasm. Yeah,
and it's just not a pleasant Like it's one thing
to be sarcastic here and there, But I have a
friend whose father, stepfather whether is the most sarcastic I
(36:13):
roy person I've ever met in my life to an
alarming degree. And it's just so like it's such a
turn off to be around this dude. You're like, I
don't want to have sex at all when I'm around,
certainly not with him. Uh yeah, he just and you
can tell like his marriage is suffered and there's he
(36:34):
can't be straight, and it's just a it's just a
chore to be around this guy. I hope he listens
to this and it's like talking about he's talking about
me and he changes his life. No, he would never
listen to this. He wouldn't give me dissatisfaction. So wow,
that guy. Huh yeah, he's that guy. So there there.
This is not to say that there's like, no, nothing
(36:56):
good about sarcasm. There. There's this one group of social
psychologists who made names for themselves by basically saying no, no.
We figured out that if you take a test of
creativity immediately after engaging in a sarcastic exchange, you're going
to score higher on that test of creativity than you
would had you not been involved in a sarcastic exchange
(37:18):
immediately beforehand, and that has been turned into in the
popular precess Sarcasm Boost Creativity across the Board. Yeah, I
guess the idea that it it challenge you challenges you
to think in a different way because it's not straightforward.
May have a little something to it, but I don't know,
it's a bit of a reach. There's other things. It
(37:39):
provides social bonding, like you and your friends, um, being
sarcastic about stuff, especially if you're being sarcastic about like
a shared target, yeah, like your teacher. Sure, it's a
great example. Um. It maintains social egalitarianism, like taking that
fisherman down a peg before he gets a big ego
for catching some fish. Um. And it can make you
(38:02):
seem apparently, as far as Harvard Business Review says, more
competent and intelligent at work. Um, which makes sense in
that you know, you do kind of have to be
sharp at the very least, you're paying a little more
attention probably if you deliver a sarcastic remark successfully. Right.
It's also risk by that you can also really come
(38:24):
off looking like like your friend's dad basically. Yeah, and
just professionally like that stuff back. That's my advice. Yeah.
So the one thing I saw was I came across
a k State I think it's Kansas State newspaper from
like two thousand eleven maybe where they were talking about
(38:46):
how sarcasm just totally pervades our society, and um, they
gave an example of how primed we are for sarcasm,
that when we encounter earnestness, like we we might be
confused set first in some situations. And the writer gave
this great example of Michael Richard's apology after he went
(39:08):
on that racial tirade at the laugh Factory and then
like a couple of days later went on Letterman and
the audience did not get Some of the audience who
hadn't heard about this, I guess, did not get that
this was like a real apology, and part of it
was his presentation that it seemed like he was doing
a bit kind of and the audience remember tittering, and
(39:31):
Jerry Seinfeld, who was like in the studio with Letterman,
had to turn to the audience and be like, stop laughing,
it's not funny, and like tell them like he wasn't,
that this wasn't sarcasm, that this was for real, and like,
if you go back and watch it, if you're a
fan of laughing at things that make you deeply uncomfortable,
like you will love that bit. It was. I remember
(39:52):
it at the time. I think it had a lot
to do with the fact that it was Kramer and
it was hard to just take him seriously. That's exactly
what it was. Yeah, man, what a mess. Yeah, it
was a massive made it even worse. Yeah, I'm gonna
I'm gonna go watch that again today. Actually I could
use some cringe humor. Yeah, um, have you got anything else? Oh? No, Josh,
(40:13):
I had nothing else. Yeah, I check. This went real well.
We did a great job. Man, I'm annoying myself even now,
So let's just send this to Since I said I'm
annoying myself, let's go to listen to ma'am. I'm gonna
call this Elton John song because why not? Hey guys,
(40:34):
love Love, Love your podcast and making making my way
through the whole catalog. I've been tempted to write, but
it didn't think I hadn't even interesting to say before.
You may not think it's interesting now. I do, though,
But what finally prompted me is when you were talking
about Elton John and the Soul Train episode so long ago,
Josh said he'd never heard the song burned Down the mission.
That made me think of the powerful song ticking from
(40:55):
Elmon John seventy four Caribou album. Song was way ahead
of its time in the way that it foretold many
future her events. I can't ever remember it being a popular,
well known song, but you've not heard it. Go listen
to it gives me chills every time I hear it.
Keep up the good work, guys. And this is from
Dinah Clay Melvin in Fort Worth, Texas. And I went
(41:15):
back and looked at the lyrics and dude Ticking is
a song about a uh an aggressive ticking time bomb,
white male shooter from ninety four, and it's all right there.
I I'm assuming Bernie Taupin wrote it. I'm not. I
didn't look it up, but I think he was kind
of writing all of his stuff back then. Who Bernie Taupin?
(41:39):
Oh you do? That's a referential joke to another episode
from the conversation we had. I guess probably in the
episode that this guy is talking about oh boy um.
But yeah, it's it's interesting to go back and listen
to that song from early nineteen seventies. Of and of
course it wasn't a big hit like she said, but
it's a I don't know, it's just interesting to hear
(42:00):
that and be like, man, you can't. You couldn't write
a song that on the nose today. So there, he
wasn't the only one who was predicting that at the time.
Like Stephen King had a short story about a kid
who comes in and like just shoots up his school,
and it's basically it's like this teenage revenge fantasy, but
it was exactly what ended up happening. Like twenty years later,
(42:21):
he wrote that I can't remember what that one was called, um,
and then there's like, um, remember falling Down that movie
with Michael Douglas from The Ladies that was basically about
that as well. Yeah, um, so yeah, I could see.
I just want to make sure we don't give Elton
John undue credit here is kind of what I'm going after.
(42:41):
Oh man, okay, you're classic beef with Elton John. Alright,
so I think we're at the end of this episode,
aren't we. I hope we are, all right. While it
was a little bit of short stuff crossover right there,
So let's let's end this as we normally do. If
you want to get in touch with us, like Diana did,
h you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast
(43:02):
at iHeart Radio dot com Stuff you Should Know is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Dave Kustin's in here with us.
I just heard him laugh and snicker to himself, which
(00:22):
is always a heartwarming sound. And it's as he mispronounced
his name. No, no, I said it right. Couston thought
it was Coustan. No, that's what you wanted to sound
like when you're French. No, this is Couston, like Houston exactly,
but with the sea instead of an h. Couston means
that I'm one day closer to you. What. That's a song, right,
(00:46):
Houston means that I'm one one step. That's a country jam. Okay,
I was gonna guess Dion Warwick. She always like singing
about about Susan, Yeah, about San Jose at cetera. Okay,
that was a Backer act Burt Backer act song. Um,
and she popularized it because she did it so well.
(01:09):
Do you know the way to San Jose? Okay, I
didn't know she's saying that. Oh yeah, I guess she
popularized it with everyone but you. Okay, that was sarcastic. No,
that was that was pretty straightforward direct sarcastic would have
been like, um, oh, I'm sure you didn't know that. Yeah,
(01:31):
I guess that would be sarcastic. It wouldn't have made
much sense, but yes, you know what's funny, chuck in.
In researching this, I kept trying to come up with
um examples of sarcasm, and it's one of the hardest
things in the world to do with with thought. Sarcasm
is like almost always off the cuff or not very
(01:53):
well thought out. It's which which um, I think is
one reason why you know, most people will agree that
somebody who is an employing sarcasm, even when they're not
very good at it, is the funniest person in the world.
Right then, see that's sarcasm. I I can't help myself. Yeah,
this researching sarcasm really makes you take a long, hard
(02:17):
look in the mirror, doesn't it. It really does, and
at people who are big fans of Deadpool. Oh I
do like Deadpool. Uh, here's my ideal with sarcasm. It
is laying ones. I mean I definitely can be sarcastic.
I think all of us can be, and I think
it can be used for funzies but I definitely see
(02:39):
where I can be a real a hole sometimes by
being sarcastic, like to Emily. And that's like the sort
of that goes back to my end. Boy, I'm sort
of revealing some stuff here, but that it falls under
the umbrella of of my communication issues instead of being
like straightforward with something may be being sarcastic but passive
(03:01):
aggressive and me and and sarcasm all kind of go
hand in hand. I think, Yeah, so you've hit upon
something that I think is not really necessarily obvious to
just anybody when they are confront of a sarcasm. Is
that No, sarcasm is a way to hide. It's a
way to hide from emotions. It's a way to hide
from direct conflict if you're not um big into conflict.
(03:24):
It's a way to hide from criticizing somebody when you're
not big into that but you really need to or
you want to. And you said it it's passive aggressive.
But I think we should make the distinction. And I
I um came across this very late in research, but
it makes a lot of sense to me that there's
a distinction between sarcasm and verbal irony, and that sarcasm
(03:50):
is at its core, insulting, mocking, harmful, and hurtful, whereas
verbal verbal irony is just basically like a joke where
no one gets insulted, where where maybe a situation is
being made fun of, Like if it's exactly if it's
(04:13):
raining cats and dogs, yes, that would be verbal irony,
not sarcasm. Um. I saw a really great example about
the distinction on I can't remember. It was like a
TV and film writing website, but they basically said, in
that sense, that would be verbal irony. But if you
were the spouse of a meteorologist who for forecast a
(04:34):
sunny day when they came home and it was raining
cats and dogs, and you said, great weather today, that
would be sarcasm because you're insulting or mocking them for
getting it wrong. Right, Like, let's say you and I
are neighbors. Great weather today, Josh, Oh you said it
their neighbor. Hey, I can speak for myself, Oh you
(04:56):
said it there, neighbor. Different than Hey, nice job with
your front lawn, Josh, and I sank swimming under you.
You're the six year old that takes everything literally exactly
because I have, uh, I have noticed that. What made
me think of sarcasm. You picked this article, but I
(05:17):
was like, that's kind of perfect because having a kid
will make you realize how often you're sarcastic because they
don't get it, at least not yet. She's uh, just
during six same days you happy birthday, Yeah, happy birthday,
Ruby too, and very sweet gifts that you sent, and
you guys exchange the video messages, which was adorable. But um,
she's six and she still doesn't get sarcasm. And I've
(05:39):
had to say like that was sarcasm and she's like
what And I'm like, man, why just keep that purity
alive of them taking things literally? Yeah, yeah, don't don't
introduce sarcasm to your kid, but you can't help it. No,
And that's the thing, Like, there's there's a whole school
of thought that it's like to heck with sarcasm, Like
we don't need it. People who use sarcasm are annoying,
(06:02):
insecure people. Um there, it's it's not a nice thing
to do or say, like there's better ways of getting
your point across, and it's not even particularly funny. But
the thing is is I've found that when you follow
that thread, there's like something inherently problematic with it, and
that there is some value to sarcasm in some some instances.
(06:25):
It's just one of those things that should be wielded
very delicately and infrequently in the right context. But if
you do it like that, sure, and if you do
it like that though, it can be um very useful
and actually some studies have found um that it's actually
beneficial brain wise too. Although researching all of the sarcasm
(06:46):
stuff has just reiterated my um my belief that social
psychology as a field should be completely dissolved and they
should just start from scratch again because it is almost
exclusively useless. It is so bad. We should have a
every time you go off on social psychology, we should
have a sound effect. We would just start employing again,
(07:10):
just get that part. We should hire a barbershop quartet,
just full time to stand behind us. Made up was
exclusively as social psychologists exactly who can also sing the
sweet sweet tunes? So Webster's defines, Um, that's a great start,
chuck Uh. It's actually the Oxford English Dictionary if you
want to go back to the original definition, which I
(07:33):
think it is useful. We don't love to read definitions,
but its first definition was a sharp, bitter or cutting
expression or remark, a bitter jibe or taunt. And the
word itself even derives from ancient Greek from to tear flesh,
gnash the teeth, and speak bitterly. So it seems like
from the beginning sarcasm was not like a nice and
(07:56):
and super funny thing for people. Know, And apparently the
ancient Greeks um had their own famous sarcast and Socrates
who was um known for what's now known as sark
Socratic irony, which is terrible where basically you play dumb
uh when you're talking to somebody in order to kind
of get their true opinion out about something, and then
(08:18):
you destroy their opinion and you suddenly become intelligent and
destroy their opinion. It's a terrible, terrible thing to do.
But apparently Socrates was well known for that kind of thing,
so much so that they named it after him. That's right.
He it's called the how how about them? Apple's approach? Right?
Um Interpreting sarcasm, That's that's where it gets tricky because
(08:41):
and that's why a six year old and we'll get
two kids more because and some people say that by
that age they can detect sarcasm. But we'll get to that. Um.
I'm glad that that my daughter can't yet because that
means that she's not a jerk yet. But as far
as picking up on these clues, you, the words themselves
you can't rely on. So what you're looking for? Other
(09:03):
kinds of clues uh that are myriad um. One of
which is obviously the tone of voice. Uh. Let's say
you can't even see the person. If you see someone
say great weather today, like you, you know without even
looking out the window, that that probably means it's it's
raining or something. Yeah, I don't even need to look.
(09:25):
They just saved you the effort, right. And some people
say that that's a nasal tone. Uh. This kind of
seemed a little hinky to me, But some researchers have
said that there's a connection between that, um, sarcasm and
extreme disgust, and that's why it comes out nasally, like
you're trying to expel something through like your mouth and
your nose. Great weather, like your nose wrinkles. I guess
(09:49):
a little bit I can see maybe. Uh. And then
of course their physical cues like a a good eye
roll or at least like looking up when you say
something is a big, big clue. Yeah, that one in
particulars because your brain is going haywire because you're saying
the opposite of what you mean. And researchers have concluded
that that looking up, which kind of looks like an
(10:11):
eye roll, is actually processing difficulty. Your brain was like,
I don't know what, dude, You just make the eyes
look up while I try to figure out what I'm
doing here. That that's that. Yeah, there's social psychology is
big contribution. Um. As far as the intonation, uh, there's
some researchers that have called that inverse pitch obtrusion, which, uh,
(10:36):
great weather is if it was really great weather, you
would say great weather today. Huh. And if not, you'd
say great weather. So your your tone and your intonation
goes down as a clear signal of sarcasm. Yeah, which
supposedly intonation or pitch um inverse pitch obtrusion is um
pretty universal as far as languages go. Are different cultures
(10:58):
because other cultures are sarcastic just American, No, And there's
a big there's a big debate online about whether it's
a universal whether sarcasm is universal, and some people are
saying like, yes, it's everywhere, like even if a culture
has a taboo against it, which some could, although I
couldn't find which ones. Um, although I think China has
widely pointed to is a not a very high sarcasm culture. Um.
(11:24):
But that if you have if your culture has a
taboo against sarcasm, you have to be aware of sarcasm
to have a taboo against it. So it's still in
that sense universal, even if it's not universally used or
accepted by each culture. Yeah, for sure, I could see
Japan is not being super sarcastic. So I read an
article about Japan. It was like a business writer's um experience,
(11:48):
like a British expat working in Japan, and he said
he used sarcasm and like he didn't really get much
laugh much of a laugh, And later on he said
he was explaining it to his Japanese call colleague was like, oh,
I know it was sarcasm. We we know all about sarcasm.
Grossly inappropriate to use it. Right then I think I
(12:09):
was like, oh god, I love it. Oh we know
what sarcasm is. That just that was just not good. Sorry.
Another thing you can do is elongate your words. Um,
it's much difference to say oh sorry than to say sorry, Yes,
that's a great, great one. That's intonation and elongating a word.
(12:31):
I guess combined with that eye roll, you can also
go the opposite way and take a word that should
be said kind of um with oomph and deflating it.
Yeah right, I'm big. I'm big on that one, like, um,
like wow, yeah great. I say that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we we We are very sarcastic people. I've come to realize.
(12:54):
I use for some reason. I know you didn't see
Fletch and you hate Chevy Chase, but I well you no, no,
I'm sorry. I love Yeah, He's my favorite. He's so funny. Um.
I will would use a line from his flag occasionally. Um.
I don't know why I would use it. I guess
whenever there was a cop or something, I would say,
(13:16):
thank God the police. And he says that line like
that in the movie. Yeah, I can. I can totally
see it wearing a baseball cap too, I'll wager m hmmm,
probably maybe. Uh. You mentioned other cultures. Um, if you're
a teacher of Esaul, English is a second language that
is one of the trickier parts of teaching English to
(13:38):
UH people as a second language, as adulter as kids
even is is trying to teach them things like sarcasm
if they're not super familiar with it. And sometimes apparently
they will say, here, watch watch this TV show because
you know, there's quite a bit of sarcasm on TV sitcoms. Yeah,
supposedly that's a really good way to pick up on
(14:00):
on sarcasm is watching sitcoms. Probably Friends in particular, I
would guess. I'm guessing they assigned Friends a lot to
be any more sarcastic. So, Chuck, this is kind of
a willy nilly episode, and I kind of like them
that way. I'm just gonna go ahead and confess. So
there's no clear place where we should put an AD
break in, So I suggest that we put an AD
(14:22):
break in right about here. That's a great idea. Stuck, Stuck, Stuck.
I don't know that you know it. Stuck in this.
(14:45):
It's a great name. That's the name of it. It's
a great name, alright, stuck with a with an X.
You know. I have to say, when I was researching this, Chuck,
I was wondering if we were gonna just do the
weird thing in not be sarcastic. I just think that
that was there was never gonna happen, was it. No,
(15:07):
I think it's it was clear from the beginning to
me that we were gonna throw our own little brand
of sarcasm in. I can't help it, chunk, I can't
tell if you're being straight. I can't either. So we're
talking about kids, um and whether or not they understand sarcasm.
And there's been um some research on this kind of thing, um,
(15:30):
and of course it's come up with contradictory findings. One
thing I saw was that kids you kept mentioning six
year old's not really getting sarcasm. That's about when they
start to pick it up somewhere around age six. That's
when they start grade school. Okay, do with it, maybe so,
But but from what I saw, they might recognize it
(15:51):
as sarcasm. They just don't understand it as a way
to employ humor. And that that comes at about age ten,
which happens to coincide when kids become obnoxious. Uh yeah,
and then it's all then you reap what you sow
as a parent because you're like I taught you this
method and UH, it's being used used against me like
(16:15):
a weapon. There was a study in France French speaking
kids in two thousand five that showed UH kids the
age of five understood sarcasm when they when the sarcastic
speaker was using intonation um. Where it took to be
over seven to be able to tell by context, and
(16:37):
context is when like I think the example they used
in the article was if you're like having a longer
conversation about UH family member being a bad gift giver,
and then at the very end you say, but I
love my sweater that they got me, and maybe see,
like I said it even sort of regular, but contextually
(16:58):
it would still be sarcastic. I don't know, Like even
in that example, I just found it confusing to tell you. Well,
I guess it could be I was a little too
I sold it too well. It sounded yeah, it sounded
really genuinely earnest. Right, that's the slip. That's the slippery
SLOPO sarcasm, so um one of the other uh. In
addition to kids not necessarily getting sarcasm, people with dementia
(17:20):
or Alzheimer's um or brain lesions have been found to
not necessarily, um, get sarcasm. And if you stop picking
up on sorry sarcasm all of a sudden, Uh, that's
a really good indicator that you might need to go
get an m R. I too sweet, Yeah for sure. Uh.
And not just that, they are all kinds of neurodiversities
that people can have that make them not able to
(17:43):
pick up on sarcasm. I know that sometimes people with
autism have difficulty understanding sarcasm. Um. They might take things
a little more literally then uh, neurotypical people might. So
it's you know, you gotta know who you're dealing with, um,
when you're throwing sarcasm around and being sensitive that kind
of thing, right for sure. So um, So people with
(18:06):
autism are famously kind of associated with an inability to
detect sarcasm. And from what I've seen, that's not really
the best way to put it. That they that many
people with autism can detect a detect sarcasm, use sarcasm um,
some find it funny, Others can recognize it but don't
(18:27):
necessarily find it funny. Um. But there's different I don't
know if they're competing or not. There's different theories as
to why that's the case. It supposedly UM. People with
autism tend to use more literal thinking than UM. The
kind of UM, well, let me just say, sarcasm is
(18:47):
known as a form of unplaine speaking, along with some
other kinds like UM forced politeness, where you like, are
nice as somebody who who's got you hate UM are
using aphorisms UM or ritual language like when you say
I'm fine when somebody asks you how you're doing, even
though you're not fine. UM. Sarcasm falls under that. It's
(19:08):
it's not saying what you mean directly. And so if
people with autism tend to use direct thinking and literal thinking,
if you use indirect or unplane speaking, it's gonna be
hard for them to pick up on. They're gonna take
it at its literal meaning, they might not pick up
on the sarcasm um. And so that that kind of
(19:28):
tend that UM tendency to think literally combined with UH
an undeveloped theory of mind, which is where you can
put yourself in the other person's shoes and imagine what
they're thinking easily, which is what sarcasm requires you to do,
because they're saying something different, but you know that's not
what they mean, and that requires that you go into
their mind and tool around. Those two things combined tend
(19:52):
to explain why people with autism are kind of thought
of as not detecting sarcasm. You got a job, Okay, thanks? Thanks.
If I had rainbow suspenders on right now, I would
have just snapped him after them. I actually had those
when I was a kid. I wanted those for a
long time. Yeah, I mean it was the whole Mork
(20:14):
and mindy thing. I even had the buttons on them,
and I wore the khaki pants. I did my best
to beat work from work. Yeah, so Morks suspenders are
obviously primo. But there's an overlooked vest, a puffy vest
that he wears in the credits when they're on the
football field that I would say even top the rainbow suspenders.
(20:35):
I would love to get my hands on that. Yeah,
looking back, I was just trying to be in work
from work, but I was dork from dork. I don't
have any pictures of that, unfortunately. Can you mention wearing
those with like a spinning bow time like now? No,
especially as a kid like I don't know about this guy,
(20:58):
but this kid wearing that you'd be all right, Uh,
if you're talking about the brain. That was a study
in two thousand five that, um, and this kind of
stuff is always I feel like we just have to
say it, even though people are like, Okay, those are
the three parts of the brain. Thinks nothing to me.
But the three parts the language cortex and the left hemisphere,
(21:20):
the frontal lobes and the right hemisphere and the right
the right ventro medial prefrontal cortex. You're gonna hear the comment,
and your language cortex kicks in and understands the literal
meaning great weather. Right. Then the frontal lobe and the
right hemisphere have the context it's raining. And then that
(21:41):
right ventro medial prefrontal cortex puts the two together and
it goes sarcasm dummy, right, and the laugh region goes
bananas down the laugh region. It's sometimes it can be funny,
but it's you've got to really be good at it.
So um, Chuck, I was talking about how sarcasm qualifies
as unplane speaking. That's like the general umbrella that it
(22:03):
falls under, right, Um, and that the fact that it
is unplaine speaking where you can get a message across
just as easily directly saying the weather sucks today. What
is the point then, of using sarcasm, of saying great
weather today rather than this weather sucks today. Um. There,
(22:25):
and so linguists, researchers, um, you know, speech scientists, talkie doctors,
all these people together have have come up with this
idea that there must be some additional thing that's going
on there. Clearly that there is something gained by using
sarcasm over using the direct message that gets the same
(22:49):
point across, because sarcasm has got a little extra mustard
on it, and they've tried to get to the bottom
of exactly what that mustard is. And I'm sorry to
use mustard. I know you don't like it very much. Yeah.
And by the way, my dog might actually be barking
some in this episode and there's just nothing I can do,
and I think that makes it folcasy. We usually trying
to edit that out. But well, to see, um, there
(23:11):
are a couple of ideas on why people do it. Um,
Like when it's a purposeful thing and not just like
I'm trying to be funny or whatever. Um. Sometimes well,
sometimes it could just be as easy as like you
have a very hard time being straightforward with someone, and you,
like you said, you use it to high, to use
it as a defense or something like that, Um, cloaking
(23:33):
something in a positive term. Oh, you did a really
great job with that episode, Josh. Um. That's sarcastic criticism,
whereas you can do the exact opposite. Uh, if you
and I were out. Um. I mean the example that
use in the article is fishing and I'm not catching
any fish and you're just like catching tons of fish.
(23:53):
I'm like, oh boy, you're really you really suck at
that fishing thing. That is a sarcastic compliment. And this
is all wrapped up under what's called the Tinge theory
of sarcasm, which is you're you're trying to mute either
your criticism or your praise of somebody by throwing like
slapping that mustard on it. Yeah, by tinging it with iron.
(24:15):
Hence the name. Right. There's also like a related one
that really just kind of looks at them the criticism
part um. It's called politeness theory, and it basically just
says that we use sarcasm to criticize because it makes
the criticism more palatable. And so you put that together,
and that is one interpretation of what sarcasm is. Therefore,
(24:35):
it's meant to boost, it's meant to mute either the
compliment or the praise or the criticism. But then there's
another one that's that basically says the exact opposite, that
sarcasm is meant to be like more biting, that it's
meant to really make the mustard spicy and put it
right near your eye. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.
(24:57):
I think, I mean, get the value somewhat of using
sarcasm rather than God, if you're just straightforward about everything,
it's like it's sort of borish. Like if let's say
you're you were with the friend who you're hanging out
and your friend is always talking over you and you
don't get a chance to get a word in edgewise,
(25:18):
and you made a little sarcastic dig in front of
people like like, oh no, I'm sure they're gonna let
me speak any minute now. That person would go, all right,
I see what you're saying, Like it may be a
little bit of an a whole sarcastic comment. But what
if someone was always just like pulling you aside and
being like you just never let me speak, and it
(25:39):
would just really like, I think there are times to
be straightforward, but like that, but if you're like that
all the time, it's like, God, no one's gonna be
around you either yeah, or or even if you didn't
pull him aside at the table, if you were like, shuck,
I'm sorry, but it's my turn to speak. You you're
not letting me speak, so I'm going to speak now. Really,
just like straightforward happened to say, Yeah, that's gonna just
(26:02):
like just gonna be a record scratching. Like you said,
no one wants to hang out with you. And that's
what I was talking about the outside of this that
it's like the idea of just getting rid of sarcasm altogether,
there's something inherently wrong with that, because if use correctly,
sarcasm is a it's a social lubricant that just keeps
the party going. Yeah, totally, because at least everyone gets
a laugh. It might be at their expense a little.
(26:24):
They get the message, and you don't like stop the
fund of the party by make having a real serious
talk about interrupting people and then starting your point that's right, yeah,
and then everyone wants to hear what you gotta say, right. So,
so the other idea is that sarcasm is used to
make criticism more biting. That it's basically like this this.
(26:45):
If I did just say, you know, um, uh, you
know you didn't screw that up. Or no, if I said,
you know, Josh, you really screwed this episode up, I
can't even criticize you hypothetically. I'm sorry. If you said
to me, Josh, you really screwed this episode up, um,
(27:06):
I would be like, oh, well, go sit on it, Chuck.
But if you said, boy, you didn't screw that episode
up at all, Josh, I would be leveled for months, basically.
And I think that's what that interms. That's what that
theory is, the rival theory to Tinge theory, that that
it actually gives an even more emotional impact to criticism
(27:27):
than otherwise would have directly. Yeah, and I think not
to get too personal, but I think you and I
as partners have learned to deal with each other a
little more straightforwardly over the years that I think that's
how we both prefer to be handled by each other
as and that's with us, like it's different. For it's
not like I can be super sarcastic with other people,
(27:48):
but I know that that wouldn't be a very nice
thing to do to you. Does that make sense? Sure,
it makes sense. I think that you can be sarcastic
with me. Well I can't give it a try. Come on,
you got uh? I could be. I can be. Just
(28:09):
held their breath there, like is he about to level Josh?
I don't know. I can be, And I am sarcastic
with you, but only in like fun ways, like I
would know never a no now to not make try
and make a real point with you. I see, I
see what you mean. Yeah, And and they have like
a real conversation if it's really yeah, yeah, okay, I
got you, I got you? Sure yeah, oh so chuck.
(28:32):
The other thing about this, too, is there's a there's
another theory. It's like, no, this is everybody you're just overthinking.
This is just humor. Like people are dressing up and
otherwise boring or pedestrian point that they want to get
across with with just a little bit of humor. And
it's like sarcasm is an easy way to use humor.
Oscar Wilde said it was the lowest form of wit,
(28:53):
but the highest form of intelligence, and that second part,
I think he was referring to the fact that it
it takes some something and to make a sarcastic comment,
and it also takes them thinking to decode it too.
But it's not necessarily funny. Right, But that is supposedly
the humor, and it is another theory for why we
use sarcasm, that it's just it's just humor. And I
(29:15):
think from researching all this, all of those makes sense.
And social psychology, in typical fashion, has found um findings
that support all of them and none of them at
the same time. Should we take a break? Sure, all right,
let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit about
that and a little bit of the use of it
throughout history and culture and arts and stuff like that.
(29:39):
Right after this. Stuck Stuck. I don't know that you
know it's stuck Stuck. It's a great name, that's the
(30:03):
name of it. It's a great name. Alight with with
an X. All right. If you want to talk uh literature,
you can't get any more sarcastic at times than Mark
twain Um. Shakespeare was pretty sarcastic at times, Chaucer was
fairly sarcastic at times. They used an example in this
(30:24):
article of the Bible that I didn't read as sarcasm.
I thought it was a bit of a stretch myself,
and we'll go ahead and read it. This is from
Ecclesiasts eleven nine. Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and
let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood.
And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires
of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you
(30:46):
to judgment for all these things. That feels more just
sort of like a one to joke than sarcasm, I guess. So, yeah, yeah,
I think they were like, there's got to be something
in here, and that's the best they could come up with. Maybe,
like we gotta find some sark them in the Bible, guys.
Get um. The thing is with that, like that kind
(31:06):
of reveals like the one of the problems with sarcasm
is that when it's just written, especially it's written a
couple of thousand years ago, it's really difficult to discern sarcasm.
You have to use whatever cues you can get because
you've had a lot of the normal cue stripped, like
all those facial expressions, the intonation um, all of that stuff.
(31:28):
Is gone, and now it's just the printed words, so
basically what you have as context. Um. And for that
reason and because we are entering I guess we've already
entered this digital age where like the written word is
basically how we convey thoughts. Now, sarcasm has really taken
a beating lately because um, study after study keeps finding
(31:52):
that people grossly over overestimate how clearly their sarcasm is
coming through in like texts and tweets and emails and
stuff like that, and that it actually isn't being understood
as sarcasm on the other end, even though the person
who's sending the email or text thinks they're sarcasm is
(32:13):
clear as a bell. Yeah, just don't try to be
sarcastic in emails, especially for work. I think it's just
a good rule. It's like, don't even try because it's
not going to come through. And like you said, you
probably think it does. It's not obvious to other people.
If you're texting with friends and stuff, you can you
(32:33):
can do things like overspell things like say great or
you know, say insert the I roll emoji or even
say sarcasm in parentheses or something like that. The one
I've seen. It's the backslash s yeah. I mean that's
definitely no backslash. Which one is it? It's one of
(32:54):
the slashes. It's a backslash followed by an say so
backslash s um. Because you know, for the first I
don't I remember. For for the first few years of
like social media and texting and stuff like that, there
was a lot of talk about like how do we
indicate sarcasm and uh, and the emojis kind of help
(33:17):
solve that problem, but you can't do that in emails,
like professional emails. You're not gonna send an emoji I
roll emoji. No, don't do it. Okay, you might as
well put three exclamation points at the end of that's great.
Are we not doing that either? This is why I
don't email anybody. I don't know what I'm doing. But
(33:37):
when I do email them, it's at like ten o'clock
on a Saturday night. One of the cons of sarcasm um.
You know, it's, like you said, you can use it
and employ it in certain certain circumstances, but there are
people who just think it is a hostile act and
it is a way to say something and also let
(34:00):
yourself off the hook for saying that thing at the
same time, and that it is hostility veiled as humor,
is what uh how they put it in this article,
and you know, at times it very much can be that. Yeah.
So the UM like marriage counselors, um uh therapists, like
basically anybody who's who's dedicated to improving you as a
(34:23):
person in exchange for money, UM has kind of zeroed
in on the worst version of sarcasm. The the very
strict definition of sarcasm is not verbal irony, but as
an insult, as mocking somebody, as it being veiled hostility,
Like you're saying passive aggressiveness, that kind of thing, and
that that is no way to communicate, especially with somebody
(34:44):
that you care about or love, that you should be forthright, direct,
honest with them. They're not saying, like, you know, make
sure you cut out humor. They're basically saying, sarcasm isn't humor,
and if you if you think it's humor, like seriously,
like like, just go find better humor because there's plenty
of better stuff out there. He's right, and they so
(35:04):
they're they're basically saying, like kind of just cut that
out of your interpersonal relationships, at least again with people
you care about, because it probably does mask passive aggressiveness
and it's not doing anything but harming your your relationship.
And in fact, John Gottman UM, who is a very
(35:25):
renowned couples therapist and his wife are together, UM says
that UM sarcasm is one of the indicators of contempt,
along with eye rolling, along with like raising a lip
like kind of in disgust while you're talking. That that
if you pickiece together, that you you are signaling that
you have contempt for your significant other, and that contempt
(35:48):
is one of the He calls them the four horsemen
of UM of a marriage. That it's a it's a
really good predictor of divorce when couples speak to each
other with contempt, and one of those ways that they'll
speak to each other with contempt is through sarcasm. Yeah,
and it's just not a pleasant Like it's one thing
to be sarcastic here and there, But I have a
friend whose father, stepfather whether is the most sarcastic I
(36:13):
roy person I've ever met in my life to an
alarming degree. And it's just so like it's such a
turn off to be around this dude. You're like, I
don't want to have sex at all when I'm around,
certainly not with him. Uh yeah, he just and you
can tell like his marriage is suffered and there's he
(36:34):
can't be straight, and it's just a it's just a
chore to be around this guy. I hope he listens
to this and it's like talking about he's talking about
me and he changes his life. No, he would never
listen to this. He wouldn't give me dissatisfaction. So wow,
that guy. Huh yeah, he's that guy. So there there.
This is not to say that there's like, no, nothing
(36:56):
good about sarcasm. There. There's this one group of social
psychologists who made names for themselves by basically saying no, no.
We figured out that if you take a test of
creativity immediately after engaging in a sarcastic exchange, you're going
to score higher on that test of creativity than you
would had you not been involved in a sarcastic exchange
(37:18):
immediately beforehand, and that has been turned into in the
popular precess Sarcasm Boost Creativity across the Board. Yeah, I
guess the idea that it it challenge you challenges you
to think in a different way because it's not straightforward.
May have a little something to it, but I don't know,
it's a bit of a reach. There's other things. It
(37:39):
provides social bonding, like you and your friends, um, being
sarcastic about stuff, especially if you're being sarcastic about like
a shared target, yeah, like your teacher. Sure, it's a
great example. Um. It maintains social egalitarianism, like taking that
fisherman down a peg before he gets a big ego
for catching some fish. Um. And it can make you
(38:02):
seem apparently, as far as Harvard Business Review says, more
competent and intelligent at work. Um, which makes sense in
that you know, you do kind of have to be
sharp at the very least, you're paying a little more
attention probably if you deliver a sarcastic remark successfully. Right.
It's also risk by that you can also really come
(38:24):
off looking like like your friend's dad basically. Yeah, and
just professionally like that stuff back. That's my advice. Yeah.
So the one thing I saw was I came across
a k State I think it's Kansas State newspaper from
like two thousand eleven maybe where they were talking about
(38:46):
how sarcasm just totally pervades our society, and um, they
gave an example of how primed we are for sarcasm,
that when we encounter earnestness, like we we might be
confused set first in some situations. And the writer gave
this great example of Michael Richard's apology after he went
(39:08):
on that racial tirade at the laugh Factory and then
like a couple of days later went on Letterman and
the audience did not get Some of the audience who
hadn't heard about this, I guess, did not get that
this was like a real apology, and part of it
was his presentation that it seemed like he was doing
a bit kind of and the audience remember tittering, and
(39:31):
Jerry Seinfeld, who was like in the studio with Letterman,
had to turn to the audience and be like, stop laughing,
it's not funny, and like tell them like he wasn't,
that this wasn't sarcasm, that this was for real, and like,
if you go back and watch it, if you're a
fan of laughing at things that make you deeply uncomfortable,
like you will love that bit. It was. I remember
(39:52):
it at the time. I think it had a lot
to do with the fact that it was Kramer and
it was hard to just take him seriously. That's exactly
what it was. Yeah, man, what a mess. Yeah, it
was a massive made it even worse. Yeah, I'm gonna
I'm gonna go watch that again today. Actually I could
use some cringe humor. Yeah, um, have you got anything else? Oh? No, Josh,
(40:13):
I had nothing else. Yeah, I check. This went real well.
We did a great job. Man, I'm annoying myself even now,
So let's just send this to Since I said I'm
annoying myself, let's go to listen to ma'am. I'm gonna
call this Elton John song because why not? Hey guys,
(40:34):
love Love, Love your podcast and making making my way
through the whole catalog. I've been tempted to write, but
it didn't think I hadn't even interesting to say before.
You may not think it's interesting now. I do, though,
But what finally prompted me is when you were talking
about Elton John and the Soul Train episode so long ago,
Josh said he'd never heard the song burned Down the mission.
That made me think of the powerful song ticking from
(40:55):
Elmon John seventy four Caribou album. Song was way ahead
of its time in the way that it foretold many
future her events. I can't ever remember it being a popular,
well known song, but you've not heard it. Go listen
to it gives me chills every time I hear it.
Keep up the good work, guys. And this is from
Dinah Clay Melvin in Fort Worth, Texas. And I went
(41:15):
back and looked at the lyrics and dude Ticking is
a song about a uh an aggressive ticking time bomb,
white male shooter from ninety four, and it's all right there.
I I'm assuming Bernie Taupin wrote it. I'm not. I
didn't look it up, but I think he was kind
of writing all of his stuff back then. Who Bernie Taupin?
(41:39):
Oh you do? That's a referential joke to another episode
from the conversation we had. I guess probably in the
episode that this guy is talking about oh boy um.
But yeah, it's it's interesting to go back and listen
to that song from early nineteen seventies. Of and of
course it wasn't a big hit like she said, but
it's a I don't know, it's just interesting to hear
(42:00):
that and be like, man, you can't. You couldn't write
a song that on the nose today. So there, he
wasn't the only one who was predicting that at the time.
Like Stephen King had a short story about a kid
who comes in and like just shoots up his school,
and it's basically it's like this teenage revenge fantasy, but
it was exactly what ended up happening. Like twenty years later,
(42:21):
he wrote that I can't remember what that one was called, um,
and then there's like, um, remember falling Down that movie
with Michael Douglas from The Ladies that was basically about
that as well. Yeah, um, so yeah, I could see.
I just want to make sure we don't give Elton
John undue credit here is kind of what I'm going after.
(42:41):
Oh man, okay, you're classic beef with Elton John. Alright,
so I think we're at the end of this episode,
aren't we. I hope we are, all right. While it
was a little bit of short stuff crossover right there,
So let's let's end this as we normally do. If
you want to get in touch with us, like Diana did,
h you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast
(43:02):
at iHeart Radio dot com Stuff you Should Know is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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