There is something special about the way irony tickles our brains. After all, we tend to enjoy a good surprise, or at least ...

My first attempts at sarcasm were clumsy and too frequent. As my humor got darker and sharper, the barriers of entry into the grown-up world lowered—it was a rite of passage. Sarcasm filed and defined ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. A father and daughter were deep in discussion over breakfast at a diner. “That’s not irony, that’s sarcasm,” the father ...

The study of sarcasm and verbal irony recognition integrates research from linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and psychology to elucidate how humans decode subtle non-literal meanings in ...

Adapted from "Irony and Sarcasm" by Roger Kreuz (MIT Press, 2020). Reprinted with permission from MIT Press. In February 1996, Alanis Morissette released the fourth single from “Jagged Little Pill,” ...

When a 12-year-old’s mother asks him “How many times do I have to tell you to stop?” he will understand that the answer, if any is required, had better not include a number. But that insight requires ...

Discover What’s Streaming On: A lot of people want to call Hari Kondabolu a “political” comedian. His recent documentary, The Problem with Apu, sparked a much-needed conversation about the hurt The ...

Anyone who’s lived in the United Kingdom for a longer period knows that the people there can find ways to surprise you when you least expect it. Just when you think that you’ve got a grip on the ...

Sarcasm is lost on many people, in some cases more than others, because they may be missing part of a complex set of cognitive skills based in specific parts of the brain. A new study by Israeli ...