If someone has ever told you to "take your time" when you're actually taking your time, or called you "Sherlock" after pointing out the obvious, you're familiar with what can be an uncomfortable form of rhetoric.
In this installment of "Word of the Week," we're digging into the mean-spirited history of the word "sarcasm." The word has violent roots — but over time, linguists and etymologists say, its meaning has sometimes been watered down to simply be a playful type of humor.
Where the word comes from
Sarcasm comes from the Greek words "sarx", or "flesh" — and "sarkasmos," or "tearing flesh."
However, around the second century A.D., Greek grammarists adapted "sarkasmos" to mean a cutting remark, since there wasn't a literal translation for it, said Armand D'Angour, a professor of classical languages and literature at the University of Oxford.
One of the earliest iterations of the word's definition comes from the grammarist Tryphon, D'Angour said, who said sarcasm is "showing one's teeth while smiling."
"You do need a metaphor when you're talking about verbal attack," D'Angour said, since words like "assault" and "tear" typically denoted physical acts.
The word soon spread to Rome, where they spoke Latin. In the first century A.D., Latin author Quintilian defined "sarcasmus" as a type of irony that uses supposedly kind words to wound someone, D'Argour said. The English "sarcasm," then, was adapted from Latin by dropping the "-us" ending — as is done to many English nouns that come from the classical language, D'Angour said.
It's likely that written instances of the word come much later than verbal uses, he said. Still, sarcasm's interpretation and history has "no straight historical line," he said, and shares contexts and uses with "irony" and "mocking."
Sarcasm's meaning might get lost among its counterparts
Today, sarcasm is generally understood as saying the opposite of what you mean, with the purpose of insulting someone.
For example, a passenger might say "way to go" after the driver turns left when they were supposed to turn right. It may not seem like a big deal, but it can subtly make the other person feel confused or hurt, said Delphine Dahan, who leads a psycholinguistics lab at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I think that is, perhaps, why it feels so hard to be on the receiving end of sarcasm. Because you're in a bind," Dahan said. "You cannot really be angry at the person … because they can say 'I didn't really mean it. I was pretending.'"
Sarcasm is particularly useful in the U.S., said Roger Kreuz, a psycholinguistics researcher and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at The University of Memphis.
"That's a really hard thing we have in American culture is that it's very impolite to be directly negative with somebody," he said. "So by saying the opposite, you're just brilliant."
Nowadays, some people even brag about their use of sarcasm to describe their sense of humor. It's possible, though, that people who perceive sarcasm positively are mixing the word up with irony, Dahan said.
But sarcasm and irony are more like cousins, not twins.
Like sarcasm, irony involves saying the opposite of what you mean. But unlike sarcasm, it can have a much lighter intent. For example, if someone were trying to be ironic, they might say to another, "What a mild winter we're having," after facing snowstorms and high winds, Dahan said.
So sarcastic remarks can be ironic, but ironic remarks are not necessarily sarcastic. The difference between the two can sometimes be in the topic. Talking about the weather is not likely to insult someone, Dahan said.
Sarcasm can also be used as a tool to leave someone out, if, for example, two people are using it as an inside joke against a third person.
"It kind of creates this air of exclusivity. You and I know what I'm talking about here, and we're being critical of this other person," Kreuz said. They may not be left with literally torn flesh, but it might still leave a wound.
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