Sarcasm mark

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A sarcasm mark or sarcasm point identifies text as being derogatory or ironic. Although a sarcasm mark exists in the Ethiopic languages,^[1] (an inverted exclamation mark used at the end of sentences) it is not a standard form of punctuation in English. If accepted, it would serve a similar purpose to the French irony mark in helping the reader to identify and interpret specific types of non-literal language.

Several solutions have been suggested and implemented, most often in the highly informal context of electronic communication (e.g., instant messaging, chat rooms, blogs, and email). Traditionally, sarcasm has been communicated implicitly through vocal intonation in oral language and through context in written communication. In the relatively unregulated context of electronic communication, sarcasm has become one of the most prevalent methods of expressing dissatisfaction, and one of the most prevalent forms of humor.^{[citation needed]} Because of the ambiguous nature of sarcastic language, and the concomitant misunderstandings engendered by its use, various people^[who?] have suggested or enacted solutions to the problem of ensuring that ambiguous language is understood in the way intended.

1 Examples on the Internet
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Examples on the Internet

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Among the solutions adopted by various internet subcultures are:

In general, particularly among some internet chatrooms, online messaging networks and forums (most notably Slashdot), SGML-like sarcasm tags have been adopted, as in <sarcasm>Oh really?</sarcasm>. A common variation is for only the closing tag, or an abbreviation of it ("/sarc") to be used. However, < and > are often filtered to prevent extraneous tags or unwanted rendering behaviour so [ and ] are often substituted. This results in the same faux-BBCode tags: [sarcasm]sarcastic words[/sarcasm] used in many phpBB/vBulletin-based. For a short time, working sarcasm tags were implemented on the Something Awful Forums. The text of a sarcasm element would be displayed boldfaced and dark red:

Oh really?
Orange Text has been used in the current incarnation of the View Askew message board as a way to help identify when one was being vaguely sarcastic and others might perceive this person as serious. It came about because on the Internet, no one can tell your inflection by reading your words in order to make things easier to understand on the board. It isn't used much anymore, but can still be found from time to time. The Orange color was discontinued for the most part because people were using it incorrectly, i.e. posting everything in orange even when not everything was sarcastic. It became old hat when some suggested that other colors be used to signify flirtation, or other tones. Recently however it has made a slight comeback, however not in the form of actually making the text orange. Many people have referenced that a post should be read as orange, or used a fake bbcode closing tag [/orange] to signify they are being sarcastic.^[2]
A rising movement for the sarcasm mark is using the "^" symbol as a sarcasm mark at the end of sentences. This is practical because often the emoticon with a raised eyebrow is used for showing sarcasm.^{[citation needed]}
Collegehumor.com forums use plus signs as sarcasm marks. +That was awesome!+^{[citation needed]}
Superfuture's forum has implemented an unofficial sarcasm meter, with (10) being very sarcastic and (0) being dead serious.
The Snark, a ligature of the full stop and tilde (~) was proposed to other type designers and typographers at http://www.typophile.com, for signifying all sorts of irony, including verbal irony, such as sarcasm.^[3]

Oh really.~
The inverted exclamation point (_¡), probably adapted from the the inverted exclamation point of the Spanish language, by Josh Greenman at slate.com:
Oh really_¡^[4]
The wink, ;), smile, :), kiss :-*, and tongue-out, :P or =P, emoticons have also been used informally, as

Oh really? ;)

Oh really? :-*

Oh really? =P
Another common form is to provide emphasis on the word that would be verbally stressed either through italicized or bolded text.

Oh really.

Oh really.
- When bold or italic typefaces are not available or convenient, the verbally stressed word is sometimes enclosed by quotation marks, underscores or slashes.
  
  Oh 'really'.
  
  Oh _really_.
  
  Oh /really/.
On some messenger clients it is common to capitalise the last letter of a sentence to show sarcasm. ("Oh reallY.")^{[citation needed]}
On other messenger clients it is sometimes common to add a tilde (~) to the end of a message to show sarcasm. ("Oh really~")
On IRC channels where the full stop at the end of a message is often dropped for speed, some use that to mark sarcasm. ("oh really.")^{[citation needed]}
On many internet sites the form of exclamation marks inside parentheses is used 'Oh really(!!!)'^{[citation needed]}

In other media:

In closed captioning in the UK, sarcasm is shown with an exclamation mark or question mark in parentheses, at the end of the sentence:
Oh really(?)^[5].
In Australia, this is replaced with an exclamation mark:
Oh really(!)