Mario Dingli, Sliema
An honest apology to a columnist
I refer to my letter of November 21.
May I say that I have had a very friendly discussion with Tony Licari regarding the letter. May
I also state that when I wrote that "sarcasm is the lowest form of with" I never intended that Dr Licari was "low". If I was understood in this sense, I apologise.
May I also say that I am looking forward to meeting this gentleman when, I am sure, we can have a very good talk together. I am sure there are other columnists and writers who sometimes are sarcastic in their writings and, here again, I am sure that they are not "low".
Regarding the quote itself, I think (I am not sure) that it was Oscar Wilde who coined this phrase. However, I hold myself open to correction.
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Dr Anthony Licari
Dec 4th 2009, 18:22
Indeed the analysis of writing attempts to find a rapport between the writer and his/her writing. This rapport is often, but not always, discovered in spite of the possibility that a writer does not always wish readers to establish any connection between the person and his/her expression. I wonder, for example, if one may say - and be believed: "My writing is politically obsessed but I am not." Psychoanalysis of writing is one subject that perhaps overemphasises this almost inevitable rapport - which may be subconscious. It is also interesting to observe in some critics a strong obsession to comment patronisingly [thus not sarcastically] on all matters under the sky - if not above it. There is obviously a reason for this phenomenon - perhaps even more than one. I was once amused by an expression used by a letter writer, "zatatism", which is an unkind word - if I suspect correctly the meaning behind it. Finally I tend to disagree with the opinion of some that there is also a rapport between a person's shape and his/her expression.
Charles J. Buttigieg
Dec 4th 2009, 17:00
Sarcasm is like cholesterol, you get high sarcasm and low sarcasm.
Andrew Borg-Cardona
Dec 4th 2009, 10:12
Sarcasm is, indeed, said to be the lowest form of wit, and the received wisdom is that Mr Wilde was the first to resort to it. The wise-crack, I mean, not sarcasm. For a columnist to feel aggrieved in the context of the application to his or her writing of the cliche' demonstrates a slight degree of failure on the part of the columnist concerned to appreciate the distinction between his writing and the perceived level of his moral standing.