12-05-2013, 07:23 AM
The "happy" link says that children "generally begin to recognize sarcasm between ages 6 and 8, especially familiar sarcastic praise such as “Thanks a lot!” and “Nice going!” "
Obviously children are picking up on, at least, tonal inflections that indicate that the speaker is not expressing the literal truth. A lot of internet users still don't get that in commenting on text-only internet forums and blogs, there is no inflection, or anything beyond the literal words, to guide our understanding of the speaker's semantics. To just drop what could easily be considered a harsh comment without further elaboration is bad netiquette. No one can read your mind and know your intent unless you spell(!) it out.
Obviously children are picking up on, at least, tonal inflections that indicate that the speaker is not expressing the literal truth. A lot of internet users still don't get that in commenting on text-only internet forums and blogs, there is no inflection, or anything beyond the literal words, to guide our understanding of the speaker's semantics. To just drop what could easily be considered a harsh comment without further elaboration is bad netiquette. No one can read your mind and know your intent unless you spell(!) it out.