by Vivienne Pratfall’s Diary: How I Used Sarcasm to Get a Free Drink, Avoid a Date, and Accidentally Insult the Prime Minister
By Vivienne Pratfall | Bohiney Magazine & The London Prat
Right. So. Wednesday was a lot.
It started, as many of my days do, with a man telling me I looked “really well.” In London, “really well” means “you look absolutely terrible but I am British and cannot say so.” I smiled. He bought me a drink. Sarcasm: the gift that keeps giving.
The Manual Nobody Writes but Everyone Needs
I have been the unofficial archivist of British sarcasm since I was fourteen and told my maths teacher his lesson was “genuinely fascinating” while visibly reading a magazine. He gave me a B+. This is the power of the British sarcasm user’s manual in action: it rewards the practitioner and confuses the recipient simultaneously.
This week I deployed sarcasm no fewer than eleven times before noon. Twice on the Tube (a man’s rucksack; a woman’s perfume). Once at a coffee shop where they spelled my name as “Viv-ee-Ann” on the cup. Twice at work, once at my editor, and once at a press release from a government minister that described current housing policy as “ambitious and forward-looking.” I laughed for four minutes. My flatmate thought I was crying.
Sarcasm vs. Sincerity: How to Tell the Difference
Here is a tip: in Britain, you cannot. The entire system is designed this way. When a British person says “Oh, brilliant,” they mean one of three things: (a) brilliant, (b) catastrophic, or (c) they haven’t been listening and are responding to your tone rather than your words. The correct response in all three cases is to nod and say “Quite.”
The Prat this week covered Britain dusting off 1956’s greatest humiliation and calling it strategy. The official press release used the word “proactive” seventeen times. I have rarely encountered a document more saturated with unintentional self-satire. Even by Westminster standards, which are impressive.
How Sarcasm Once Saved My Evening
Last Tuesday a man at a bar told me he worked in “strategic communications.” I told him that sounded “incredibly important.” He agreed enthusiastically. We talked for forty minutes. He bought me two more drinks. He has since sent me three LinkedIn requests. This is not a love story. This is a case study.
Meanwhile over at Bohiney, I found a story about the internet being held together with duct tape, which honestly explains a lot about why my Deliveroo order keeps going to the wrong address. The article is excellent. I read it sarcastically and it improved by approximately forty percent.
Also compelling: the London Prat’s deep dive into British irony, which I recommend to any American who has ever been told their work is “not bad at all” by a British colleague and gone home feeling proud.
Right. I have a thing. It’s probably fine.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
More gentle nonsense at The Daily Mash
