Dear Reader,

recently, I’ve been writing intensively back and forth with a friend of mine.

We both love sarcasm, but we also like to exchange deep thoughts and opinions. Thus we acknowledged that we needed something to signal whether a sentence had to be considered ironical/sarcastic or be taken literally for its written meaning.

We started putting an opening and a closing clause: SMO, which stands both for Serious Mode On and for Serious Mode Off. Everything is, by our default, conveyed in ironic style.

However, it is ambiguous, so we switched to SMN and SMF: Serious Mode oN and Serious Mode ofF.

It’s corny, but it works. Misunderstandings about the tone of sentences often plague online communications.

Until next time, (SMN) I wish all the best for you (SMF)