There was nothing very interesting in Katherine P. Rankin’s study of sarcasm — at least, nothing worth your important time. All she did was use an M.R.I. to find the place in the brain where the ability to detect sarcasm resides. But then, you probably already knew it was in the right parahippocampal gyrus.
What you may not have realized is that perceiving sarcasm, the smirking put-down that buries its barb by stating the opposite, requires a nifty mental trick that lies at the heart of social relations: figuring out what others are thinking. Those who lose the ability, whether through a head injury or the frontotemporal dementias afflicting the patients in Dr. Rankin’s study, just do not get it when someone says during a hurricane, “Nice weather we’re having.”
Your Operator holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, from Michigan State University, and an Associate of Arts in Music Theory and Performance, including three years of study in Guitar, Piano, Jazz, Music History, Voice, Counterpoint and Composition.
He has worked as a land surveyor, a line cook, a legal assistant, a copywriter, a digital print technician, and a stacker of canned goods.
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