[North Korean] authorities have reportedly been holding mass meetings in various parts of the country to warn people against making sarcastic remarks about the regime and its supreme leader. … Officials pointed to the phrase “this is all America’s fault” as an example of sarcasm it doesn’t want uttered. It’s common for North Koreans to use the phrase ironically to criticize the country’s leadership.
September 9th, 2016 at 8:24AM
love this thanks, here in flyover country folks are a bit irony-challenged but I think I will adopt this technique as a kind of on the fly personality test.
September 9th, 2016 at 11:49AM
So this means “This is all Bush’s fault!” so frequently heard among the forces of progress not so long ago was actually a sarcastic statement that really meant “This is NOT all Bush’s fault!”?
Or that when Bill Clinton said long ago, “I believe that we can make America great again,” he was actually calling for the re-establishment of institutionalized racism as he says the dastardly real estate developer is now?
September 10th, 2016 at 12:22PM
The US equivalent is “Thanks, Obama”
September 10th, 2016 at 12:39PM
Mr Punch: Correct.
September 10th, 2016 at 1:18PM
Yes, “Thanks, Obama.” Perfect.
Here’s Conrad Hyers, on the many uses of humor:
“As gallows humor or concentration-camp humor will attest, it may also express a certain heroic defiance in the face of life’s most crushing defeats, an unquenchable nobility of spirit that refuses to permit a given fate or oppressor the last word–to be absolute.”
Or, in a somewhat lower register: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGb4STRfKw