How to be a Rude Chick

We were going through the book of James when we started talking about examples of how our tongue can get out of control and sin. The most obvious ones were lying and the spread of rumours and deceit, but then I raised the question on sarcasm, and asked if sarcasm can be a form of sin.

I got a resounding 'no' from the room, but I wasn't entirely convinced. You have to understand that when I first got here, I found the Australian sense of humour to be quite sarcastic overall. The Brits have their stiff upper lip and their dry sense of humour. Tony's sense of humour, I realise, is rather like that. The Australian sense of humour, however, is quite patently sarcastic. The Singaporean sense of humour tends to enjoy puns (with so many languages to choose from) and some of it can be situational ("Oh look at that funny dog! HAHAHA!") and not all that witty.

Here's the thing. Not wholly understanding that it's the Australian humour, I got stung quite a few times when I first got to Australia. They were unintentional wisecracks, but sensitive me felt rather foolish at the end of it and had to nervously laugh it off before I grew a thicker hide and realised it's not personal. That's not to say I haven't used sarcasm myself, but I think when I do, it's either to intentionally hurt, or else it's so goofy that it's closer to teasing and irony than it is sarcasm.

Whatever it is, I've made a concerted effort to tone down my sarcastic sense of humour for a few years now, so coming into a culture that uses so much of it to express itself was quite painful to the ears.

I mentioned sarcasm during the lesson because I realised my sense of humour was starting to adapt to my environment, and I unintentionally might have hurt my housemate on Sunday when the words fell over themselves. The punchline I delivered was very good - in fact it was stingingly accurate and delivered with finesse, but the poor darling has repeated the incident to quite a few people and I've started to wonder whether he was trying to work that sting out of his system, hoping it'd dilute with each time he relates how stupid he turned out to be.

And that's when it hit me... it is one thing to be witty, it is one thing to tease... but it's quite something else altogether to be sarcastic. The example I was given in class was that Jesus used sarcasm. Sarcasm, I was told, was more neutral than anything and that it was the way you said it and the intention behind the sarcasm that mattered. This evening at dinner, I was reminded that sarcasm was not necessarily a bad thing, but I was still under a strong hunch that sarcasm actually is sinful.

I checked up the root word for sarcasm, and here's what I found out:

The Greek form of this word, sarkasmos, means "to tear flesh, bite the lips in rage, sneer." And Webster’s dictionary defines sarcasm as "a sharp utterance designed to cut or give pain."

As to the claim that Jesus was sarcastic, I think he was actually being ironic. The word 'irony' actually means "The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning." In Greek, it means 'feigned ignorance'. It is a slightly more neutral word, and does not have the negative connatation that the word 'sarcasm' does.

Why do I bother to go into such detail and word play? Only to understand myself more. I like being the joker and I love laughing and making people laugh, but I want to know that I'm not being a jerk while I'm at it. Knowing that there is a distinct difference between being ironic and being sarcastic is one step towards making sure I know where my boundaries are.

If you're interested in reading up more about sarcasm, you might like to check out this page.