Comments on: SarcMarking http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/ Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:15:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.15 By: Anonymous http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15850 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:38:37 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15850 An old English teacher of mine used to describe the exclamation mark as 'punctuation to indicate when a sentence was meant to be funny', so I suspect he wouldn't like emoticons.

They serve a purpose online, where it isn't always easy to distinguish irony from genuine lunacy and where lunatics are a little thicker on the ground than Austen-level wits.

]]> By: T. Anne http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15846 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:37:35 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15846 Never heard of this. Interesting.

]]> By: MaryWitzl http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15845 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:12:20 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15845 I agree too! Emoticons drive me wild. They remind me of those twee little symbols in beginning readers that help children remember nouns. Reading is all about weaving words into clever stories. Smiley faces are too much like cheating.

]]> By: Kristin Laughtin http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15844 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:06:50 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15844 I had never even heard of the SarcMark until I came across this post. But I agree that writers absolutely shouldn't rely on it. I sometimes have to fight the temptation to show sarcasm by italicizing the stressed word(s) in a sentence, and that's bad enough. (Thankfully I've gotten better at this; the temptation really only surfaces when a character is saying something in a very exaggerated manner.) With good writing, the reader should be able to "hear" the sentence well enough to get the sarcasm without it being pointed out through formatting.

]]> By: D. Antone http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15842 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:51:56 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15842 I couldn't agree with you more. These trends in writing are cause for concern. Too many people use these 'shortcuts' and loose the opportunity to sharpen their writing. I have a feeling that it's only going to get worse.

]]> By: Joanne http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/comment-page-1/#comment-15841 Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:46:02 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/01/sarcmarking/#comment-15841 They wouldn't even consider it! These writers are without a doubt the masters of language, no tools necessary.

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