Sardonic Aside - by Joel Neff
This week: Sardonic. It's a word that's been used to describe everyone from Dorothy Parker to Edward Gorey to David Sedaris. But what exactly does it mean? We figure it out. With examples! Then some footnotes and, uh, that's it for this week? Here we go.
Sardonic humor, or sardonicism, is an often misunderstood word; it is used almost interchangeably with sarcasm. And yet it is the basis for much of both dry, British wit and more cynical American wit.
Searching for sardonic on Google gives us a definition and a starting place for exploring this word in more depth: "grimly mocking or cynical." As eye-opening as that is, a more in-depth definition might be appropriate. Here is a very thorough one from Literary Terms (dot net):
Sardonic is an adjective describing dry, understated, and sort of mocking speech or writing—such as a clever remark that stings because it’s so accurate. While sardonic comments seem slightly hostile, they are supposed to be witty and humorous rather than deeply hurtful.
They go on to note that sardonicism is considered a tone. The Economist's GRE Tutor site offers this example of just what that means: "Ms. Jefferson, it must be said, is a master of the arched-eyebrow, sardonic quip." In other words, imagine you're acting in a play and you want to deliver a humorous line completely but you do so straight-faced and as though you're slightly bored with the whole inconvenient situation. Maybe, like Ms. Jefferson, you arch one eyebrow. Congratulations, you've just acted sardonically.
The idea of sardonicism as a tone is particularly evident in written works. Like in this quote from one of my favorite novels of all time, Farewell, My Lovely:
I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.
I mean, that's a mood, right? Like I feel that every Monday. But let's ruin the joke by examining it. In Farewell, My Lovely, private investigator Philip Marlowe is in the wrong place at the right time and spends most of the novel being bone-numbingly weary at everything. He (well, author Raymond Chandler) sets up his joke by describing some normal, everyday wants. And then the bitterly cynical punchline comes in and hits hard at the situation rather than at any one person. But maybe we need more examples.
Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams were both masters of a more gentle form of sardonicism. Here's Terry Pratchett describing the city of Ankh-Morpok in Discworld:
There’s a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it’s wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people walk along them the wrong way.
And here's Douglas Adams describing the alien ships that have just arrived on Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
Both of these are what we might call a sardonic aside in that they, like the example from Raymond Chandler above, avoid targeting anyone directly. But a lot of sardonic comments are barbed and aimed at someone. Literary Terms provides several examples from across modern, popular media, but what all their examples have in common is that they are a rejoinder. Someone says something either blindingly obvious, or naive, or just ignorant and someone snaps back with a comment that lets the first speaker know just how dumb they were being.
Sardonicism is also alive and well on the internet. We see it all the time, usually in memes or quips that parody the news or media of the day, but also in self-deprecating, satiric, tweets and instagram posts that become memes themselves. Again, it's easier to give examples than to explain, so...
Penguin books used to publish classics with matching covers. People of the internet have built web apps that let people create their own. Pinterest has a bunch of them. Here are a few of my favorites:
I Used To Be Happy (and Other Lies)
Don't Actually Press Send (a Memoir)
Small Talk (Please God No Please Stop)
That Sexy Text Wasn't Meant for Grandma (Stories of Eternal Embarrassment)
Please Don't Touch My Arm with Your Arm (How I Died on a Public Bus)
Each of these, alike in format and presentation, follows the same formula as the other quotes above. There's a set-up in the first half that presents a common social interaction and then a "grimly mocking or cynical" second half that sends the joke home.
To me, it's this formula that sets up so much of modern comedy. You see it in stand-up comics' observational humor and in sitcoms' scripted interactions. You hear it in the office, you read it on the internet. It is the gentle rejoinder you direct at a friend and it is the sharp criticism you level at your co-worker. And, with any luck, it's something we all understand a little better now.
Stay curious,
J
Footnotes:
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