Because it requires very little brain power to be sarcastic? Karina L. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit only to those who have never mastered the art, and those who always fall victim to it. Adam Pemberton, Sylvania. The lowest form of wit is reputedly the pun - or as some wag said, "The bun is the lowest form of wheat". Gary Whale, Yamba. Sarcasm is generally negative, and tends to hurt, which places it on the lowest rung of the humour ladder.
For example, "He thinks he's a wit, but he's only half right. Recent research at the University of Haifa claims that sarcasm is a complex high order skill needing an ability to understand other peoples state of mind and emotions. Its low because it targets chiefly the sensitive, inarticulate, unsophisticated and powerless.
Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie. Great question! I've wondered the same myself, because you need to be bordering on genius to be able to apply it in just about any given situation.
Luke O'Dwyer, Banksia. Madeline Palmer, Kualal Lumpur. It came, via the French "catholique", from a Greek word composed of two parts - the first part meaning "in general" and the second "whole". Brad Elliott, North Rocks. According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles the word catholic means general or universal.
It came to English from the French catholique which in term came from a similar greek word composed of two parts. The first part stands for "in general" and the second part stands for "whole" which has led to its present meaning and usage. Used in a religious sense, members of the Anglican church state their beliefs in the Creed and pray for the "One Holy, Catholic Church"; we often use the word loosely when we refer to Catholics versus Protestants , when we mean Roman Catholics.
It is a very useful word in secular connotations as well. Mary Purnell Revesby. The word "catholic" has a noble and secular ancestry dating back to the Greeks. In Homer we find "holos" meaning "whole, entire, complete". Aristotle uses the term "cath-holon" to refer to a general or universal truth. The word 'catholicus' was taken over by Latin Christian writers in the 2nd century to mean 'universal'.
Use of the word "catholic" with lower case inital letter preserves its original pre-Christian meaning. Humphrey Charles, Bronte. The word "catholic" comes from the Greek "katholikos" meaning universal. So a catholic mind is all-embracing, one of varied interests and ideas.
Anna Smith, Runcorn, Qld. Catholic, the actual word, is unrelated to religion. It means from dictionary. Another meaning is Including or concerning all humankind; universal.
This second meaning is the one from which Roman Catholic is derived, which I guess is the church for all humankind. Most people shorten Roman Catholic to simply Catholic.
This also explains why the Anglican Church's creed states that we are "part of one Holy Catholic Church" the exact wording escapes me through years of non-attendance! I remember we discussed that at Bible Study one night, as we were confused as to why Anglicans of which I am one would declare that I am part of the Catholic Church when Anglicans and Catholics had been fighting for centuries and were in fact separate Churches.
It was pointed out to me the true meaning of Catholic, and its separation from the Roman Catholic Church which has the Pope as its figurehead. Peter Hatley, Glendenning. Tennis players are seeded so that the top players do not meet each other in the early rounds, but rather meet in the finals. This is analogous to a farmer planting evenly spaced seeds. To continue the analogy, the seeds will grow and flourish in the finals.
Joseph Lee, Belfield. It derives from the verbal sense of scattering seed, as with cloud-seeding. The top players are spread apart so that they can out-perform the weeds before competing with each other. If re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere is so dangerous, why doesn't the space shuttle go slower? Leaving aside the considerable control problems of slowly "flying" an unpowered aircraft with relatively insignificant wing area for its weight, to go from orbital velocity and altitude to being stationary at ground level you need to convert the orbital motion kinetic and altitude potential energy into heat.
This can be done by atmospheric braking or by firing retro rockets. The latter method is now used to slightly brake the shuttle out of orbit. To slow the shuttle down with rocket power would require about the same additional fuel as is required to put it into orbit, plus further fuel to put this additional fuel into orbit with the shuttle, which is not practical. Chris de Zylva, St Ives.
Orbital speed and gravity are sucking it towards the earth at 8k per second, a pace requiring far too much fuel and power to resist with puny rocketry. The atmosphere works as the only brake. Freewheeling downhill with the brakes on creates all that friction and heat and the need for a foolproof heat shield.
In , Sir Issac Newton published in his "Principia" the result of an idea that had been germinating in his mind since This was the first recognition of the importance of the gravitational forces, and their effect in regions far beyond the immediate vicinity of the earth's surface. So when the space shuttle returns to earth, it'll required to apply the "brakes" or retro-rockets.
This action will obviously produce heat, vibration, noise, gases, fire, light, etc and makes this maneuver very delicate and dangerous, as probably Dr Andy Thomas could explain in more detail. Fausto Mino, Schofields. The shuttle operates at an orbital altitude of nautical miles. During de-orbit, the shuttle has to change from flying like a spacecraft into flying like a missile, and then finally into flying like a glider. Key point is that all of this must be accomplished without exceeding the thermal or structural limits of the spacecraft.
Going slower at re-entry may require a lot of extra fuel and may increase the vertical velocity component for the rest of the descent, so re-entry temperatures would be higher. It is the ultimate balance of compromises, but the amount of fuel needed to descend into the atmosphere with speed reduction at critical altitudes and air densities along with the associated equipment would be too expensive and probably as hazardous if not more so than the current re-entry profile.
Francisco Mota, Thornleigh. The Shuttle has to travel at a sufficiently high speed so that the centripetal acceleration required by it motion in its nearly circular path matches the acceleration due to gravity at that altitude.
Animal Farm by George Orwell. Those oh so clever tales. They seem to be about one thing but really they are a commentary on what is bad about that thing. So saying one thing, but meaning something else. Sound familiar? People who agree with you will see the satire and laugh. The others will agree with your characters and laugh. Sarcasm does the same thing, but comes off the fence. It picks a side. Sarcasm is satire without the insurance policy.
The reason is simple: sarcasm expresses the poisonous sting of contempt, hurting others and harming relationships. As a form of communication, sarcasm takes on the debt of conflict.
And yet, our research suggests, there may also be some unexpected benefits from sarcasm: greater creativity. The use of sarcasm, in fact, promotes creativity for those on both the giving and receiving end of sarcastic exchanges. Instead of avoiding sarcasm completely in the office, the research suggests sarcasm, used with care and in moderation, can be effectively used and trigger some creative sparks. Sarcasm involves constructing or exposing contradictions between intended meanings.
The most common form of verbal irony, sarcasm is often used to humorously convey thinly veiled disapproval or scorn. Early research on sarcasm explored how people interpret statements and found that, as expected, sarcasm makes a statement sound more critical. Participants rated sarcasm to be more condemning than literal statements.
Both perspectives prompted participants to rate sarcastic comments by the second person as more impolite relative to literal comments.
Other research has show that sarcasm can be easily misinterpreted, particularly when communicated electronically. In one study , 30 pairs of university students were given a list of statements to communicate, half of which were sarcastic and half of which were serious. Some students communicated their messages via e-mail and others via voice recordings.
Participants who received the voice messages accurately gleaned the sarcasm or lack thereof 73 percent of the time, but those who received the statements via e-mail did so only 56 percent of the time, hardly better than chance. By comparison, the e-mailers had anticipated that 78 percent of participants would pick up on the sarcasm inherent in their sarcastic statements.
That is, they badly overestimated their ability to communicate the tenor of their sarcastic statements via e-mail. They guessed they would correctly interpret the tone of the e-mails they received about 90 percent of the time. They were considerably less overconfident about their ability to interpret voice messages. In recent research, my colleagues and I discovered an upside to this otherwise gloomy picture of sarcasm.
In one study, we assigned some participants to engage in either simulated sarcastic, sincere, or neutral dialogues by choosing from pre-written responses on a sheet of paper.
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