Some deaf and hearing people misunderstood me because they really were not fluent at facial expressions like “eyebrow wiggles” and “smile” and “eye pops” at same time or with “smirk”. Same thing with the “eye rollings in disbelief” or “sigh”.

1. A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired.
2. A will is a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
5. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
7. If you don’t pay your exorcist you may be repossessed.
8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.
10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulting in Linoleum Blownapart.
13. You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
14. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
15. He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
16. A calendar’s days are numbered.
17. A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine’.
18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.
19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
23. When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
27. Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.
29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

Actually if you were referring to ‘in person’, and then it would be a different story. Nevertheless, you’re right about the tones.

But wait… were you being sarcastic when you created this ’sarcasm-related’ topic? ;)

TGIF

Anyone seen Princess Mononoke? In the book “Hanging out with the Dream King,” Neil Gaiman discusses how he translated the script for Mononoke into english. Usually, he said, they would do a simple word-for-word translation with anime. Not for Mononoke: Gaiman wanted all of the missing elements to be visible. He wanted all of the cultural referents for Japan to be available for American viewers.

Why do I mention this? Because he described one scene where the main character shaved his hair. And unless you understand what it means in Japan for someone to shave their hair, you fail to understand the irony of that scene. So Gaiman worked a line into the movie where they made reference to whoever it was in Japanese history that cut off their hair, and suddenly the meaning was clear.

Context and culture. Of course hearing people completely miss out on Deaf sarcasm, such as when I comment on certain friends of mine not leaving tips.

But what’s interesting is that I have a much harder time picking up on sarcasm in IM messages — there’s no way to figure out facial expression or body language or tone of voice (with the residual hearing I have, which ain’t much) … and someone will say something that sounds so serious and I take it to be, and then later am told that person was kidding. Hmm… we need video IM! (better quality than what’s available now). So if sarcasm is lost on me during IM convos, it could easily be lost on hearing ppl as well.

And now, i’m heading out to horribly hate this miserable day. ;-)