Richardowen

Hey, I'm moving over in 3 weeks and all my friends keep saying that i'm going to have to stop being so bloody sarcastic cos no-one will get it.

I know that there's a stereo-type about Americans not getting sarcasm but I wondered what your experience was ?

I await your crass, thoughtless one-liners.

Rich./

anotherlimey

Of course they do.

dan_alford

No, Americans have a consumate knowledge of British humour and will get every last one of your sarcastic nuances in your jokes. They are also wonderful and polite drivers who don't believe in social climbing and form long term friendships with people outside of work.

TruBrit

hiya and welcome my lovely hubs was born in the austin area many moons ago....yep forget your humour, wit, sarcasm as it's wasted here...for example a US lady i met a short time ago told me her husband was called herb so i said in a laughing tone "guess you call him 'erb" and it went right over the top of her head she asked me "why" and i went through the whole rigmarole of the americans referring to herbs as 'erbs and of course the moment was long gone....i don't even bother now and being a scouser i miss the humour more than anything....still good luck and maybe you'll win some of them over, cheers

Richardowen

Well that's lovely...

( cheers )

rincewind

Sarcasm doesn't work in my office. They just think I'm being overly polite.

Example:

"Hey, can you work on this project and get it out by today?"

"Sure, I'm overloaded already, but I'll drop everything just for you and get it done. I'll explain to the other project managers that your request was by far more important than theirs so it had to go to the top of my list."

Blank stares, followed by a "thanks dude!"

Old William

Sarcasm they are fine with. It's Irony they cant understand.

If you find yourself in an argument with one of the locals dont bother attempting subtle repartee liberally sprinkled with a smorgasbord of nuance and wit...just adopt the native method of raising one finger and telling your adversary to go F*** themselves. Its the only thing that works.

rincewind

Whereupon they make use of their native right to bear arms

Warrington Wolf

If you're expecting intelligent humour and wit.... FORGET IT! One of the things that I miss about Britain is the banter that goes on between friends, work colleagues, family, etc. Other Brits that I speak to also seem to miss it too. When I started work here I tried the wit and sarcasm on the natives but it just went straight over their heads (huh?, excuse me?) so I don't bother trying any more. I save it all up for the weekend when we see our Brit mates.

It's the funny things you miss about Britain, eh?

britvic

The only sarcasm, wit & banter is what you will find on here stuck on this side of the pond We do have a few Yanks on here and they seem to fit in very nicely, so welcome to BE Richardowen

dan_alford

Well there is one way to get a sarcastic comment to go across as a joke, at least in the south.

Take the previous example:

Just modify it to add "Here's your sign" to the end. Most American's are a lot like computers. They won't get your meaning unless you explicitly state it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Engvall

Bob

I think a lot of it depends on where you live and work, some people do get the irony and sarcasm, many don't.

You can have fun with it, I've gotten a lot of the guys to say random things which they don't get, makes me smile like calling everyone slags

Ray

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