The Israelis have discovered sarcasm.

I guess I need a "Sarcasm" category.

Actually, this part puzzled me a little:

However, she noted that the research threw little light on the popular national stereotypes of the English as highly sarcastic and the Americans as totally lacking in irony.

I recall a survey in the Economist several years ago, when they had a little vignette of a description by a member of the foreign service about a certain African (or some other Third-World) country. He apparently said, with face straight, that the problem with the place was that the people there "lacked a sense of irony."

But I didn't know they thought that was the case here, or that such a stereotype exists. I do think that Brits tend to have a more ironic, drier sense of humor (droll, if you will), but that doesn't mean that we don't do it in America. If she thinks that Americans aren't sarcastic, she's never been to New York. Or Boston.

[An update]

It reminds me of the old joke about the Soviet Russian, the American, the Ethiopian, and an Israeli (don't ask me why). A reporter runs up to them, and asks, "Excuse me, what 's your opinion about the meat shortage?"

The Ethiopian asks "What's meat"?

The American asks, "What's a shortage?"

The Russian asks, "What's an opinion?"

The Israeli asks, "What's this 'Excuse me'?"

Reminds me of the the old Trek series where Kirk will beam down to a planet and make vast generalizations about all of the inhabitants.

The Americans "totally lacking in irony"?!

I think this is a ridiculous opinion from one clueless person who might be basing it upon a couple of friends who think like she does.

Does anybody remember--ANYBODY?--all the talk about how 9-11 meant "the end of irony"?

Try this:

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,175112,00.html

"V I E W P O I N T S
The Age Of Irony Comes To An End
By ROGER ROSENBLATT
Sep. 24, 2001
One good thing could come from this horror: it could spell the end of the age of irony. For some 30 years--roughly as long as the Twin Towers were upright--the good folks in charge of America's intellectual life have insisted that nothing was to be believed in or taken seriously. Nothing was real. With a giggle and a smirk, our chattering classes--our columnists and pop culture makers--declared that detachment and personal whimsy were the necessary tools for an oh-so-cool life. Who but a slobbering bumpkin would think, " I feel your pain" ? The ironists, seeing through everything, made it difficult for..."

And it was not just American magazines who were proclaiming that this was the "end of irony" in America. Go to Google and type in "end of irony" and one of the first hits is a British newspaper. So clearly some Brits picked up on this subject as well. And allow me to state the bloody obvious: in order for Americans to stop being ironic, they have to BE IRONIC in the first place.

So the woman is a maroon and should be killed.

There's nothing ironic about American irony. We tend to be more "Wacky" with our satire. In which we tend to lose the subtilty of being truely ironic. I would take the classic British Irony to be more dramatic then our own. As the British might also prefer us to , [silly monty python voice]"Stop being Silly!"[/silly mony python voice]

Hey, Alanis Morrissette is Canadian!

It may be our way of interfacing with other cultures. Even with foreign born employees\ immigrants that I work with here. I avoid sarcasms and ironies so as not to confuse them in our conversations. I see it as a courtesy. Isn’t that ironic.