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TIL that symbols to denote irony or sarcasm in print have been around since at least the 1500s (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 year ago by PostBot@chat.maiion.com to c/todayilearned@chat.maiion.com

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[–] PrincessLeiasCat@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Another method of expressing sarcasm is by placing a tilde (~) adjacent to the punctuation. This allows for easy use with any keyboard, as well as variation. Variations include dry sarcasm (~.)

TIL - I’m an engineer & when I email colleagues, I will use ~ in a sentence to mean “about” - as in estimate, roughly, not quite equal to but close enough, etc.

Granted, the symbol is in a different place to denote sarcasm, but now I’m wondering how popular the usage of ~ is in the context of sarcasm, and have I ever confused someone because they only knew this context?

Interesting.

[–] artifice@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago

I guess I've been unintentionally sarcastic ~5 times then

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