The study of sarcasm and verbal irony recognition integrates research from linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and psychology to elucidate how humans decode subtle non-literal meanings in ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

JON WINOKUR is the author of 20 reference books and anthologies, including, most recently, "The Big Book of Irony." WHEN it was revealed in 2003 that William J. Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues ...

“WELL, that’s just great.” Quick, what does that sentence mean? Is the speaker acknowledging some good news, celebrating a joyful event that just took place? Do we take the statement at face value? Or ...

Everyone knows that Americans don't understand irony. Soon after moving to England from the U.S., I discovered that my country was universally assumed to be an irony-free zone. I was at a dinner party ...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts One of my pet hates is when ...

Irony is one of those things you kind of know when you see or hear it on screen, but it's much harder to define and put into layman's terms. But don't worry, we have you covered there. Today, we're ...