All right Jeri (or anyone else) I have a question for you.

Suppose you like to use irony and humour in your everyday speech? It's just a style......perhaps even a defence against the overwhelming 'dumbing-down' of everything around you.

Now in public, this works.....probably around seventy percent of the time. You know....that kind of 'supermarket banter' that can get a smile out of people who no longer feel their jobs (hence their lives) count for anything.

Amongst your (my) friends, the percentage is much higher....probably 90 percent. Yes, I know a LOT of folks and I DO have to watch myself around 10 percent or so, of them. They simply don't have a wide or deep enough experience to appreciate irony. Fair enough. Those that think I'm an incomprehensible asshole, would hopefully stop coming around after a while.

BUT....BUT....on the net (Mudcat) it seems that verrry few folks understand irony at all. I've said things that were positively "Python-esque" in their ridiculousness, and had miffed PMs from mainstream Mudcatters, (people whom I've communicated with for quite a while) who simply didn't have a clue that I wasn't being serious.

Is it mostly not seeing a FACIAL EXPRESSION? Someone said that without that (sort of) wink, far fewer people would get ANYONE'S jokes.

Veteran internet users (and I ain't one of them) MUST have dealt with this, and come up with solutions in the past. I've started putting "ha ha!" after certain sentences, but that makes me wanna puke. It's like explaining a joke. I know that some folks say something like "grn", which may mean "grin" I guess, but that's almost as bad.

Hmmmmm, like a lot of times, just writing something down seems to answer yer own questions. Perhaps there IS no way to alert people to written humour. I gather those "facial expressions" are crucial".

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By the way....on a completely different subject: Joan Baez is coming to town, and the paper said that in every concert she's done this month, people (from all parts of the audience) are getting up and leaving......BECAUSE SHE'S BEEN CRITICAL OF BUSH AND THE WAR!!

Who on earth did these people think they were going to see? Yanni, Celine Dion? Now I find this news story screamingly hysterical. So is it just me?

Great thread Jer

Rick