I know we discussed how irony and sarcasm are conveyed through text and how meaning may be missed when the reader is unfamiliar with the author and their prior works and or views. This trend is obvious on Facebook and through email, on which it is difficult to convey sarcasm even to friends. However one software company has patented what they hope will become a punctuation mark to denote sarcasm in emails and other electronic media. The mark itself is called a Sarcmarc and looks like a spiral with a dot in the center of it.
http://02d9656.netsoljsp.com/SarcMark/modules/user/commonfiles/newmarkinfo.jsp
(The link is to the official SarcMark page and includes a download link)
(Their webpage is also a bit sub-par)
That’s a really interesting idea, and would probably help with a lot of text-related interactions. I wonder, though, if it would take away from the humor in sarcasm by making it that obvious, specifically in relation to literature. I’m thinking of the example we used in class, Huck Finn. For a text like that, the punctuation mark would have to be on basically every page, because the entire text is based on sarcasm and satire. But for everyday conversation, this mark would be useful, especially in cases where the reader does know the author of the text (ex: Facebook comment, blog post) and does not come to the text with any associations or expectations that would help identify sarcasm. This punctuation mark again brings up the question of the role of the author.
I just tried to download the Sarcmarc and unfortunately they haven’t added the MAC platform yet. But once it is released I definitely plan to use it. There have been countless instances when I thought I made a brilliant sarcastic remark but I was left unrewarded because the person I was speaking with didn’t understand the fact that i was being sarcastic. This mark has the potential to be groundbreaking for comedic authors.
I think that this mark can ease tension that may result from a sarcastic comment being read incorrectly. In the past I have sent a sarcastic remark which to me seemed genius and evident but the person to whom I sent it completely misread it and the humor was lost. I think that this mark could be extremely beneficial in casual conversations.
I think that the “Sarcmarc” would be a very good idea for the social networking type websites, email, and texting. This form of punctuation would definitely enhance conversations between friends, as the awkward moments of explaining your remark would be erased all together. That said, I’m not sure if I would use this punctuation because, to me, a part of what makes sarcasm so funny is the element of surprise. With a sarcmarc, people will most likely notice this punctuation mark before actually reading the comment, just as you notice a “?” at the end of a sentence to change your tone of voice in reading it. Thus, the whole mystery and surprise aspect of sarcasm would be lost. I think that this would downplay the humor of most comments, for me at least.