Isn't it sarcastic? Don't you think?

January 17, 2023 4:24 PM

How would you describe the difference between irony and sarcasm? What if you were talking to a ten or twelve year old? Assume native English speaker.

I feel like I know the difference, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. Is there a difference in the moral element?

My child said that sarcasm indicates human intention and only refers to language, whereas irony can a characteristic of situations. But is there more than that?

And does it shed light to include satire in this discussion?

posted by Winnie the Proust to Writing & Language (25 answers total)

Your kid is onto something - irony is bigger than sarcasm. Sarcasm is humor, and usually pretty cheap humor, saying the opposite of what you mean to an audience who’ll get the joke. But in addition to comic irony, there’s dramatic irony, even tragic irony that’s not funny at all, e.g., Maupassant’s The Diamond Necklace.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:35 PM on January 17, 2023

Sarcasm always employs irony, but yeah--like the kid said--irony can cover a lot outside of just sarcasm. I think a complicating factor is that colloquially on the internet people often say they're using irony / being ironic when they more specifically mean they're being sarcastic, so the meanings can kinda intermix in common parlance.

Not sure about the moral element! Seems like irony can be pretty value-neutral whereas sarcasm is kinda fundamentally biting even when it's biting gently. Curious if wiser folks have more insight on that part.
posted by churl at 4:36 PM on January 17, 2023

There is an entire book about this (which is quite good and very readable, even though it's put out by an academic press).

I can't quote it from memory but I think Kreuz agrees with the previous posters in that "irony" can cover a whole lot of situations where there's a gap between what's stated and what's understood, or between what's expected and what actually happens. Sarcasm is a particular subspecies of irony. Also that sarcasm tends to be harsh or mean-spirited - it's much more usual to say "Wow, that was graceful" when someone has done something clumsy than to say "Wow, that was clumsy" when someone has done something graceful. (It doesn't have to be, and that's not necessarily a defining feature of sarcasm, but I would say it's less usual to be sarcastic to someone if you don't intend to make fun of them, even if in a gentle way).
posted by Jeanne at 4:44 PM on January 17, 2023

This is such a great question, that I did a quick google, and I think I'm inclined to agree with your kid that that sarcasm refers to language and intention, specifically negative intention. I might add, less neutrally, that sarcasm is typically a bit mean-spirited, or at best intended to be witty and at someone's expense (if that someone is one's self).

Here's a piece from the Columbia Journalism Review: sarcasm is said with a sneer, whereas irony can be neutral or positive or negative, and can be situational.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:48 PM on January 17, 2023

I'd say that irony is when we're laughing together about the ups and downs of life; it makes a grin-and-bear-it approach more bearable because we're in it together. Sarcasm is negativity that's phrased in a potentially light and humorous way; however, any laughter feels shallow because the speaker is a little -- or a lot bitter -- about whatever they're mentioning and we can tell.
posted by smorgasbord at 4:53 PM on January 17, 2023

Sarcasm's when the person who's always late enters the meeting (late) and hears "nice of you to show up on time!"
Irony is when that same person makes it on time only to find out the meeting's been pushed back (so everyone would be there)
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:54 PM on January 17, 2023

FWIW I hate sarcasm and love irony, although to each his/her/their own! Sarcasm can be clever and delivered well so it's funny but, more often than not, it just comes across as mean. Especially for tweens and teens who are just learning how to humorous through word play.
posted by smorgasbord at 4:56 PM on January 17, 2023

The best explanation I've heard of this was on a random podcast by Timothy Morton, a generalization of what Jeanne said above: irony is the aesthetic exploitation of a formal opposition between multiple levels of information. So if you have two simultaneous levels of information about the same thing, you're receiving message A on one channel, and you're receiving message opposite-of-A on the second channel, the feeling is irony.

Sarcasm or verbal irony is a subtype of this: the literal meaning is A, but the intended meaning is the opposite.

Dramatic irony: what the characters believe/ work for is A, but the audience knows that the exact opposite is true.
posted by Bardolph at 5:23 PM on January 17, 2023

To me, irony is a characteristic or quality of a thing or situation; it's inherent in that thing. Sarcasm is a tool, a type of human expression, an attitude or perspective about the thing which can illuminate irony; it's external to that thing. A circumstance can't be sarcastic, but it can be ironic.

Then again, we see all things through human perspective, so maybe that's all balderdash.
posted by happy_cat at 5:45 PM on January 17, 2023

If it helps dramatize the distinction, "sarcasm" is from "late Greek sarkazein tear flesh, gnash the teeth, speak bitterly, from sark-, sarx flesh." (Oxford Shorter)

Which also says it wasn't originally about cutting remarks that necessarily involved verbal irony: "a bitter or wounding expression or remark, a taunt, esp. one ironically worded."
posted by away for regrooving at 5:53 PM on January 17, 2023

Sarcasm is Greta Thunberg telling Andrew Tate she'd love to hear about his collection of cars.

Irony is Andrew Tate trying to troll Greta Thunberg for publicity, then getting arrested by the Romanian police because his rant gave away his location.
posted by davidwitteveen at 6:44 PM on January 17, 2023

Sounds to me like your kid's already got it. But I'll mention the Yiddish saying Man trakht un Got lakht (people make plans and God laughs). Sarcasm is me laughing at you, if you call that laughter; irony is more the universe laughing at us.
posted by aws17576 at 8:16 PM on January 17, 2023

(And that goes for dramatic irony, too, only you get the flattery of being the universe.)
posted by aws17576 at 8:19 PM on January 17, 2023

I might remark how wonderful my day was when I spent two hours struggling to get to a shop only for it to be closed. I could elaborate for some time on how I so needed the exercise, how the rain simply sparkled when the downpour started, and how useful it was to discover than my shoes were no longer waterproof.

I'm beginning to wonder if I overuse the word sarcasm, because the above is describing a bunch of ironies with a sarcastic tone of voice in a way that I would absolutely call sarcasm, but it is intransitive in a way that definitions of the word seem to exclude (there is always an object of sarcasm, a thing being mocked). Conversely the situations are ironic regardless of the tone of voice I use.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 8:57 PM on January 17, 2023

I once saw this printed in white, on a black t-shirt, worn by a woman in her late seventies, "Irony, the opposite of wrinkly."

Yeah so, irony is; and sarcasm can be the discussion of it, or other vexing matters.
posted by Oyéah at 9:40 PM on January 17, 2023

A pithy explanation that I've always liked is: "Sarcasm is when you say yes and mean no; irony is when you say yes and mean yes and no."
posted by ambulatorybird at 9:48 PM on January 17, 2023

Sarcasm is mean! I think the Wikipedia discussion is pretty good. The section on "Sarcasm and irony" argues that sarcasm needn't involve irony. This is perhaps debatable, but I think I am persuaded by the example:

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!"

If sarcasm doesn't necessarily employ irony, though, we need to explain why they are so closely associated. I think the reason is that irony can be a very handy tool of sarcasm. If I say, "Hey nice shirt," and I don't mean it, but I want you to initially think I mean it and then realize I don't so it hurts your feelings, I am employing irony in the service of sarcasm. The irony is in the initially divergent interpretations of my meaning, the sarcasm is that I am trying to use your recognition of the irony to cause you pain. It's embarrassing to think someone is saying something nice to you and then learn they are saying something not nice. It's worse than just having them say something not nice to you in the first place. So it's an irony that lends itself to sarcasm.

I think your kid is right that sarcasm is the narrower concept in one way -- it seems to be limited to mean talk in particular. For example, Merriam-Webster gives "a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain." Whereas irony is a more expansive concept that is not limited to talk. But they also differ in that sarcasm necessarily involves attacking someone or something, and irony does not.
posted by grobstein at 10:13 PM on January 17, 2023

Your kid is very much on the right track by specifying that sarcasm involves intention. All sarcasm is created intentionally. Irony can be created intentionally but also, perhaps more generally, is the result of circumstance.

From the song you reference in your title:
Alanis Morisette, "Isn't it Ironic":
An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
And who would've thought? It figures

More examples in the song at the link.
posted by beagle at 6:21 AM on January 18, 2023

The thing about that song is that most of the examples are not ironic. They just suck.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:15 AM on January 18, 2023

Irony is something you notice
Sarcasm is something you do

Also, irony is gentle / wistful. Sarcasm is a bit mean.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 7:41 AM on January 18, 2023

I am bewildered that we have gotten 18 hours into this thread and I'm the first to mention Reality Bites.
posted by intermod at 10:06 AM on January 18, 2023

From a lot of the comments here, people don't know what irony is. Neither do most sources on the web.
I can't find a good definition. That wretched song doesn't help, because Alanis Morisette doesn't have the slightest idea what irony is.
Sarcasm is a subtle type of humor which involves saying the opposite of what you mean. It's generally used to express dissatisfaction with something.
Irony is not humor, at least not deliberately, and it's typically darker. If all the effort you put into making something happen results in the opposite, that's ironic. Irony is the difference between what you think and what you get, so that what you worked for brought about exactly what you didn't want, but with a twist. I've never heard anyone say, "That's ironic" and had it be something good.
Irony and sarcasm aren't different takes on the same thing. They're not related at all.
Most irony I've heard was a description of physical events. Sarcasm is wordplay.
Sarcasm is supposed to be a bit funny. Irony is usually cruel.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 10:45 AM on January 18, 2023

With respect, AugustCrunch, if everybody is wrong about the meanings of these words, then that's a--shall we say--very anti-descriptivist position to take.

At dictionary.com, the first definition of irony is a flat-out synonym for sarcasm. Also, the definition "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected" captures the broad meaning of irony very well, I think. Sarcasm is a type of verbal irony. Dramatic irony is often intended to be humorous.
posted by polecat at 2:29 PM on January 18, 2023

Sarcasm is wordplay. Sarcasm is supposed to be a bit funny. Irony is usually cruel.

If anything sarcasm is the one that usually implies mockery or ridicule of the thing it pretends to express (or the person asking an annoying question); while irony can be more dispassionate and aesthetic. Consider 'biting sarcasm' and 'bitter sarcasm' vs 'ironic detachment' and 'ironic distance.'

Or, 'sarcastic' can be used to mean something like 'acerbic' where 'ironic' can mean 'self-referential.'
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:50 PM on January 18, 2023

(Also, 'bored irony' and the use of ironic to mean 'disaffected' where sarcasm would imply at least more vitriol. Although I've heard 'bored sarcasm' too, if rarely.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:02 PM on January 18, 2023