So, They Call You “Concentration Camp” Ehrhardt
Sarcasm is a linguistic disguise—words said perfectly straightforwardly but deliberately meant to incite negative emotions, to hurt or belittle. Usually this is done by meaning the opposite of what is being said, although the oppositeness of the meaning is conveyed in what scientists call a paralinguistic way, through vocal inflection and body language. If you’re learning a new language, “reading” a person's true thoughts and intentions rather than what they’re saying—once again, what scientists call second-order interpretation—can be a tricky business, and sarcasm in a comment can often be missed. (Except from the French. It’s very easy to tell when the French are being sarcastic.)
The element of sarcasm can be missed in people with neurological damage as well. But for those of us who haven’t taken one in the head, what’s our excuse? Is it the rapid decline of face-to-face communication that’s gotten us out of the knack of taking in those subtle little visual/aural indicators of what a person is really thinking? Or is it some sort of twisted internalization of political correctness, a subconscious choice to avoid the possibility that the person speaking is actually laying on some hostility or aggression?
To get back to the title of this posting. It’s from Ernst Lubitch’s classic film To Be Or Not to Be and was spoken by Jack Benny, playing that great, great actor (Benny’s hilarious un-ironic inflection is lost in text) Josef Tura. In his most unctuous manner he appears to be paying a compliment to the local Nazi commandant, played by the wonderful Sig Ruman. But Tura, after all, is an actor, in this scene costumed—disguised—as another German officer, and though Ehrhardt accepts his praise in all his pomposity, Tura is actually saying, You’ve invaded my beloved country and murdered my countrymen! What the hell do you think “concentration camp” means to Poles anyway, you big fat German pig? Of course Ehrhardt completely misses the sarcasm (as he was meant to) and is eventually killed by Polish freedom fighters.
Good for him. Let the rest of us try to be more aware and resilient enough to respond to sarcasm in a manner befitting, with wit and matching firepower. Otherwise we’ll be losing yet a little bit more of the richness of our language.
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