A relatively new word for me is snark.

There are a number of definitions of the word "snark" that can be found online. One definition for the word "snark" is "an imaginary animal created by Lewis Carroll in his poem The Hunting of the Snark

Etymology: prob. < sn(ake) + (sh)ark"
http://www.yourdictionary.com/snark

Here's some other definitions of the word "snark":

[Lewis Carroll, via the Michigan Terminal System]
1. A system failure. When a user's process bombed, the operator would get the message "Help, Help, Snark in MTS!"

2. More generally, any kind of unexplained or threatening
event on a computer (especially if it might be a boojum).
Often used to refer to an event or a log file entry that might
indicate an attempted security violation. See snivitz.

3. UUCP name of snark.thyrsus.com, home site of the Hacker
Jargon File versions 2.*.*.

http://dictionary.die.net/snark



However, I've become more familiar with the use of that term by bloggers to refer to sarcastic, perhaps witty comments. I'm not sure how the word "snark" came to mean "a sarcastic comment." But that wrod is certainly used that way on a number of blogs.

The problem is determining whether a blogger meant his or her comment to be taken seriously or read as a snark. Besides writing the word "snark" after a comment, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to indicate that an Internet post is supposed to be taken sarcastically. This can lead to a lot of confusion and arguments.

Here's a comment from a dailykos poster about the problems inherent in writing on the Internet:

On the web, without the benefit of inflection and facial expression, I think it's doubly and triply important to go out of one's way to be clear about meaning and tone. Half the time I feel I'm having to make clear what I DON"T mean.

Typically, one makes a comment, it is misunderstood in several different ways. If both parties are sufficiently committed to communication, the misunderstandings are finally pared away and the original meaning gets through. In the meantime, the whole exercise has exhausted or antagonized people to the effect that the original simple meaning seems less important than the frustrating struggle to be heard clearly.

In short, on the internet, fighting begets fighting, even in the face of agreement.
-geomoo, May 16, 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/16/17255/1845/372/494909

**

Sometimes snark comments are quite obviously snarky and sometimes people find it more difficult to determine if a comment should be taken seriously, or should be considered a snark.

The person reading a snark comment might not "get" that the comment is snark because that reader is unfamiliar with a particular culture, and thus doesn't understand the cultural context of the comment. Also, readers may have difficulty discerning whether a comment is snark or not because they don't know the person who wrote the comment [they don't know that person's background and his or her posting history and therefore can't use that to judge whether the person is being serious or not].

For example, Don(Wyziwyg)T, I admit that I don't know whether your
15 May 08 - 05:14 PM post is serious in whole or in part, or is wholly snark or some other attempt at witticism. For instance, when you said that the word "suss" came from the word "suspicious", I thought that your post might be serious. But then when I continued reading it, I reversed that conclusion.

Don(Wyziwyg)T, I admit that sometimes I don't have a good sense of humor. I also admit that I don't know you well. But, I wanna say that I didn't find the last part of your post funny-though it might indeed be witty- as it seemed to be close to actual police practices that occur in many African American and Latino communities. One such practice that I'm referring to is Driving While Black {DWB}