[Foundation-l] Wikinews - not so much a state of the wiki

[Thomas Dalton]

On 05/12/2007, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > on 12/4/07 6:27 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > No, factual. In my experience, Americans have great difficulty
> > recognising sarcasm (in general, of course). It's just a cultural
> > thing. I have great difficultly understanding baseball and American
> > football metaphors, while most Americans seem to be able to use them
> > fluently - it's much the same thing.
> >
>
> Not really, Thomas. Metaphors are grasped cognitively; while sarcasm relies
> more on the emotions.

Yes, but the reason I'm good at understanding sarcasm is because I'm
frequently exposed to it due to it's common place in my culture. The
reason Americans are good are understanding sports metaphors is
because they are frequently exposed to them due to their common place
in their culture. Also, while sarcasm is emotional, it is usually
expressed without emotion ("dead pan"), which is what makes it
difficult to recognise for the uninitiated.

This is rather off-topic, though... Shall we call it a day on this
analysis of a throw-away comment?