International Symbol for Sarcasm

At Lobo's request, I'm starting this topic to gather ideas/gain support for coming to an agreement by EVERYONE IN THE WORLD, for a way of marking our typed comments as being sarcastic. My facebook page for this idea was greeted with derision and, yes, sarcasm, maybe here it will gain some momentum. My first idea was using dollar marks around the sarcastic bit of text....

$ Oh yes, that's a really great idea $

any other ideas are very welcome!

ETA:  Facebook Page

(Edited on 2013-02-14 07:56:12 by SamBurt)

Nice idea, but I am not sure on the dollar symbol.  How about the wavey hyphen instead,


~Oh yes, that's a really great idea~

That's a nice idea, it doesn't interfere with reading the start and end letters quite so much as the $ either. I like it

(Edited on 2013-02-14 07:58:29 by SamBurt)

How about a tag? Such as

[facebook]Oh yeah, that's a really great idea.[/facebook]

or there's the hash tag way:

oh, what a great idea #sarcasm

but I think that's a bit like typing "in case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic" which is far too much hassle in my opinion

Interesting topic, I like tilde symbol ~ too but maybe is not so simple for all people to type it on the keyboard.
Just a # or *?


*Oh yes, that's a really great idea*

Well, the tilde is just shift-#

I like the astersik, but in my experience it seems to have become the symbol for correcting spellig errors

*spelling

ETA *asterisk

(Edited on 2013-02-14 08:21:04 by SamBurt)

To be honest, Sam, if you need a symbol for sarcasm it says very little about the capabilities of the writer! (And doesn't say much for the writer's regard for the intelligence of the reader.)

You right Sam about this asterisk, but these "strange" symbols like the tilde on mac/pc use different codes; on mac for example is alt+5. I'm not expert, maybe I'm wrong and there are a way to do it on both using the same key but if I type shift-# on mac this is the result: ° 


So I thought on a more simple symbol...mmmm let's think!

How about backwards parentheses, like this:


) Why yes, that's a great idea. (

FUN!!! I've seen it written in the forums as a simple end tag - [/sarcasm] - after the sarcastic line. I believe the line "reads" like this to most people familiar with code: "end sarcasm" similar to the term "end quote". So this example conversation from Urban Dictionary:

Aram: I nearly drowned in the pool today.
Vivian: Sounds like the best day ever [/sarcasm]

reads like:

Aram: I nearly drowned in the pool today.
Vivian: Sounds like the best day ever, end [of my] sarcasm

Urban Dictionary provides some ideas but imho are too short to be noticed.

FYI - in UBB (our forum's code VS html), a [/ s] (without space between / and s) refers to strike like this: strike so we can't use that.

regarding asterisks, I use them to highlight words like *think* when I have a little backing behind the idea but I'm still unsure, example:

I *think* it's going to rain today.

On Urban Dictionary, asterisks are not shown to be used for sarcasm. Instead they are used for expressions from the author like making noises or actions that cannot be seen or heard in text: *cough* *ahem* *rolls eyes* *sigh* *smacks forehead*

An asterisk in our UBB forum symbol library causes no harm while greater than/less than symbols do.

Oh yeah, because we really need something like this.

Wow great explanation pink_cotton_candy, I must study the Urban Dictionary!

thanks Leo! I found another resource at Wikipedia under Irony Punctuation.

The idea of [?] [!] at end of sentence/comment might be useful

¥. A friend of mine and I used this one for years in text and internet chat. (alt 669 for you few window users) ¥


 


 

Isn't using $ signs sarcastic in itself?

/
/
I partly agree Roger, I rarely use sarcasm myself, but it seems we have written codes and conventions for nearly every other way of speaking, why not sarcasm? 

There are different sides to the issue, Sam. As already illustrated above, not everyone understands what sarcasm is. In such a case, it might not be the best thing to trivialise it with a symbol.

A frequent saying is that 'sarcasm is the lowest form of wit'. Certainly, it didn't go down well with a friend when I suggested it was the highest form of wit.

Don't get me wrong. I retain endless respect for the man who bought my The bird has flown!

Aha, yes, I'm still waiting to be able to use that pic for something, it's time will come!