473: sarcasm Mar 25, 2016

Everyone knows sarcasm; all comedy would be entirely different without it. What not everyone knows is where it originates. The word came to English in the mid 1500's, adopted from either the French, 'sarcasme', or through late Latin. Whichever, the word ultimately derives from the late Greek word, 'sarkasmos', which meant ‘gnash the teeth, speak bitterly". It was the evolved version of the Greek, 'sarkazein' meaning a far more extreme ‘tear flesh'.