You know what sarcasm is – snarky comments which are either the lowest form of wit or the highest form of intelligence, depending on which side of them you’re on. But do you know where the word itself comes from? Yes? Well, aren’t you clever? (That’s sarcastic, by the way.) If you don’t, then read on…
The word ‘sarcasm’ has its roots in the Greek sarkazein, which means ‘to tear flesh like a dog’ or ‘to bite the lips in rage’. So basically, it’s a verbal savaging. This same root, sark-, meaning ‘flesh’, also turns up in sarcophagus – AKA a stone coffin beloved of mummies (and former word of the week). Why? Because the original sarcophagi were made from limestone that was believed to consume flesh. Yum.
An intelligent response to a sarcastic comment
Sarcasm (the word, not the concept) first appeared in English in 1579, in an annotation to ‘The Shepheardes Calender’, Edmund Spenser’s first major poetic work (his most famous one was ‘The Faerie Queene’, an epic allegorical poem about the Tudor Dynasty and Elizabeth I that you might have struggled through at school). The annotation reads ‘Tom piper, an ironicall Sarcasmus, spoken in derision of these rude wits’. (‘Ironicall Sarcasmus’ would be a great name for a band.) ‘Sarcastic’ took a bit longer to appear in print, not turning up until 1695 in a work by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Nope, me neither.
(Edmund Spenser’s first wife was called Machabyas Childe. This isn’t relevant – I just think it’s a fantastic name.)
Sarcasm can be hard to show in writing, so loads of people have tried to come up with a punctuation mark to denote it. This includes the percontation point (which I’ve previously written about here), and the excellently named SarcMark™.