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Friday, January 10, 2020

A linguistic trust fall

Irony is a linguistic trust fall. When I write or speak with a double meaning, I fall backwards, hoping that you’ll be there to catch me.

The risks are high: misaimed irony can gravely injure the conversation.

But the rewards are high, too: the sublime joy of feeling purely understood, the comfort of knowing someone’s on your side.

No wonder people through the ages kept trying so hard to write it.
Source: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch

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