It’s so clever to be sarcastic

QUESTION

Does sarcasm exist in every culture in the world?

IT HAS been claimed that certain less demonstrative cultures such as the Japanese and Germans don’t have sarcasm, but this is not the case. Sarcasm is fine-tuned to fit the culture, which is why some other cultures may not understand our use of it.

The Japanese, for example, refer to the ‘perfume of the countryside’ when mentioning the smell of manure, and the Germans have produced some fine comedians such as Henning Wehn (who admittedly honed his craft during the 14 years he’s lived in the UK).

He recently joked: ‘In a way I’m quite pleased by Brexit. I wish I’d been here before Britain joined the Common Market because, from what I hear, it must have been an absolute paradise. You got to work three days a week... let’s hope we can all live through that again in the very near future.’

Most recent research suggests that sarcasm is an evolutionary attribute, a facet of what anthropologists call ‘social intelligence’. Children as young as five can detect sarcastic statements quickly.

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists have monitored the electrical activity of brains exposed to sarcastic statements and found that they have to work harder to understand sarcasm. That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study.

Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.

QUESTION

Zinedine Zidane’s last act on a football pitch was to be sent off for headbutting an opposition player in the 2006 World Cup Final. What other ignominious ends to sporting careers are there?

FURTHER to earlier examples, in January 1990, at Louisiana’s Delta Downs racetrack, jockey Sylvester Carmouche aroused the stewards’ suspicions by riding home 23-1 outsider Landing Officer by 24 lengths in just a second over the course record.

It transpired that Carmouche, who initially protested his innocence, had taken advantage of very heavy fog and dropped out of the race as soon as he was out of view, only to rejoin it just before the rest of the field came round on the second lap.

He was given a ten-year ban, ending his career.

Jim Cullen, Belfast.