Sarcasm

[5] The word comes from the Ancient Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós) which is taken from σαρκάζειν (sarkázein) meaning "to tear flesh, bite the lip in rage, sneer".

[10]Lexicographer Henry Watson Fowler writes in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage: Sarcasm does not necessarily involve irony.

This sophisticated understanding can be lacking in some people with certain forms of brain damage, dementia and sometimes autism,[15] and this perception has been located by MRI in the right parahippocampal gyrus.

[16][17] Research on the anatomy of sarcasm has shown, according to Richard Delmonico, a neuropsychologist at University of California, Davis, that people with damage in the prefrontal cortex have difficulty understanding non-verbal aspects of language like tone.

[18] In William Brant's Critique of Sarcastic Reason,[19] sarcasm is hypothesized to develop as a cognitive and emotional tool that adolescents use in order to test the borders of politeness and truth in conversation.

[20] Fyodor Dostoevsky, on the other hand, recognized in it a cry of pain: Sarcasm, he said, was "usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

[23] A 2015 study by L. Huang, F. Gino and A.D. Galinsky of the Harvard Business School "tests a novel theoretical model in which both the construction and interpretation of sarcasm lead to greater creativity because they activate abstract thinking.

[27] Though in the English language there is not any standard accepted method to denote irony or sarcasm in written conversation, several forms of punctuation have been proposed.

Example of sarcasm without irony: (frequently attributed to Winston Churchill) After an onlooker comments on one being drunk: "My dear, tomorrow I will be sober, and you will still be ugly!"

Example of irony without sarcasm: After a popular teacher apologizes to the class for answering his phone in the other room: "I don't know if we can forgive you!"

A French company has developed an analytics tool that claims to have up to 80% accuracy in identifying sarcastic comments posted online.

[35] The Buddhist monk Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu has identified sarcasm as contrary to right speech, an aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path leading to the end of suffering.

[36] He opines that sarcasm is an unskillful and unwholesome method of humor, which he contrasts with an approach based on frankly highlighting the ironies inherent in life.