An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: aphorismos, denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tradition from generation to generation.
Often aphorisms are distinguished from other short sayings by the need for interpretation to make sense of them. In A Theory of the Aphorism, Andrew Hui defined an aphorism as "a short saying that requires interpretation".
The word was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. The often-cited first sentence of this work is: "Ὁ βίος βραχύς, δὲ τέχνη μακρή" – "life is short, art is long", usually reversed in order (Ars longa, vita brevis).
This aphorism was later applied or adapted to physical science and then morphed into multifarious aphorisms of philosophy, morality, and literature. Currently, an aphorism is generally understood to be a concise and eloquent statement of truth.
Aphorisms are distinct from axioms: aphorisms generally originate from experience and custom,
whereas axioms are self-evident truths and therefore require no
additional proof. Aphorisms have been especially used in subjects to
which no methodical or scientific treatment was originally applied, such
as agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence, and politics.
Two influential collections of aphorisms published in the twentieth century were Unkempt Thoughts by Stanisław Jerzy Lec (in Polish) and Itch of Wisdom by Mikhail Turovsky (in Russian and English).
Professor of Humanities Andrew Hui, author of A Theory of the Aphorism offered the following definition of an aphorism: "a short saying that requires interpretation".
Hui showed that some of the earliest philosophical texts from
traditions around the world used an aphoristic style. Some of the
earliest texts in the western philosophical canon feature short
statements requiring interpretation, as seen in the Pre-Socratics like Heraclitus and Parmenides. In early Hindu literature, the Vedas were composed of many aphorisms. Likewise, in early Chinese philosophy, Taoist texts like the Tao Te Ching and the ConfucianAnalects relied on an aphoristic style. Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Desiderius Erasmus, and Friedrich Nietzsche rank among some of the most notable philosophers who employed them in the modern time.
Andrew Hui argued that aphorisms played an important role in the
history of philosophy, influencing the favored mediums of philosophical
traditions. He argued for example, that the Platonic Dialogues
served as a response to the difficult to interpret fragments and
phrases which Pre-Socratic philosophers were famous for. Hui proposes
that aphorisms often arrive before, after, or in response to more
systematic argumentative philosophy.
For example, aphorisms may come before a systematic philosophy, because
the systematic philosophy consists of the attempt to interpret and
explain the aphorisms, as he argues is the case with Confucianism.
Alternately, aphorisms may be written against systematic philosophy, as a
form of challenge or irreverence, as seen in Nietzsche's work. Lastly,
aphorisms may come after or following systematic philosophy, as was the
case with Francis Bacon, who sought to bring an end to old ways of
thinking.
Robert Hayman's 1628 book Quodlibets devotes much of its text to epigrams.
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greekἐπίγραμμα (epígramma, "inscription", from ἐπιγράφειν [epigráphein], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia.
The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities.
Ancient Greek
The Greek
tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at
sanctuaries – including statues of athletes – and on funerary monuments,
for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams.
Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "epigram" and "elegy" is sometimes indistinct (they share a characteristic metre, elegiac couplets). In the classical period,
the clear distinction between them was that epigrams were inscribed and
meant to be read, while elegies were recited and meant to be heard.
Some elegies could be quite short, but only public epigrams were longer
than ten lines. All the same, the origin of epigram in inscription
exerted a residual pressure to keep things concise,
even when they were recited in Hellenistic times. Many of the
characteristic types of literary epigram look back to inscriptional
contexts, particularly funerary epigram, which in the Hellenistic era
becomes a literary exercise. Many "sympotic" epigrams combine sympotic
and funerary elements – they tell their readers (or listeners) to drink
and live for today because life is short. Generally, any theme found in
classical elegies could be and were adapted for later literary epigrams.
Hellenistic epigrams are also thought of as having a "point" –
that is, the poem ends in a punchline or satirical twist. By no means do
all Greek epigrams behave this way; many are simply descriptive, but Meleager of Gadara and Philippus of Thessalonica,
the first comprehensive anthologists, preferred the short and witty
epigram. Since their collections helped form knowledge of the genre in
Rome and then later throughout Europe, Epigram came to be associated
with 'point', especially because the European epigram tradition takes
the Latin poet Martial as its principal model; he copied and adapted Greek models (particularly the contemporary poets Lucillius and Nicarchus) selectively and in the process redefined the genre, aligning it with the indigenous Roman tradition of "satura", hexameter satire, as practised by (among others) his contemporary Juvenal. Greek epigram was actually much more diverse, as the Milan Papyrus now indicates.
A major source for Greek literary epigram is the Greek Anthology, a compilation from the 10th century AD based on older collections, including those of Meleager and Philippus. It contains epigrams ranging from the Hellenistic period through the Imperial period and Late Antiquity into the compiler's own Byzantine era – a thousand years of short elegiac texts on every topic under the sun. The Anthology includes one book of Christian epigrams as well as one book of erotic and amorous homosexual epigrams called the Μοῦσα Παιδικἠ (Mousa Paidike, "The Boyish Muse").
Ancient Roman
Roman
epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman
epigrams, however, were often more satirical than Greek ones, and at
times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed
as inscriptions or graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii,
which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to
have been composed by a less educated person. Its content makes it clear
how popular such poems were:
Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.
I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,
since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.
However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to
patrons or entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many
Roman writers seem to have composed epigrams, including Domitius Marsus, whose collection Cicuta (now lost) was named after the poisonous plant Cicuta for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic Pharsalia. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus, who wrote both invectives and love epigrams – his poem 85 is one of the latter.
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
I hate and I love. Maybe you'd like to know why I do?
I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am tormented.
Martial, however, is considered to be the master of the Latin epigram.
His technique relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the
last line, thus drawing him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a
genre. Here he defines his genre against a (probably fictional) critic
(in the latter half of 2.77):
Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus. Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis, sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.
Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo
often stretches out over a doublesided page.
A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,
but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.
Poets known for their epigrams whose work has been lost include Cornificia.
The first work of English literature penned in North America was Robert Hayman's Quodlibets, Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfoundland,
which is a collection of over 300 epigrams, many of which do not
conform to the two-line rule or trend. While the collection was written
between 1618 and 1628 in what is now Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, it
was published shortly after his return to Britain.
In Victorian times the epigram couplet was often used by the prolific American poet Emily Dickinson. Her poem No. 1534 is a typical example of her eleven poetic epigrams. The novelist George Eliot also included couplets throughout her writings. Her best example is in her sequenced sonnet poem entitled Brother and Sister
in which each of the eleven sequenced sonnet ends with a couplet. In
her sonnets, the preceding lead-in-line, to the couplet ending of each,
could be thought of as a title for the couplet, as is shown in Sonnet
VIII of the sequence.
During the early 20th century, the rhymed epigram couplet form developed into a fixed verse image form, with an integral title as the third line. Adelaide Crapsey codified the couplet form into a two-line rhymed verse of ten syllables per line with her image couplet poem On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees, first published in 1915.
By the 1930s, the five-line cinquain verse form became widely known in the poetry of the Scottish poet William Soutar. These were originally labelled epigrams but later identified as image cinquains in the style of Adelaide Crapsey.
J. V. Cunningham was also a noted writer of epigrams (a medium suited to a "short-breathed" person).
The term, which is typically pejorative, is often used in modern
culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a
prior event. Clichés may or may not be true. Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts. Clichés often are employed for comedic effect, typically in fiction.
Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking but have lost their force through overuse. The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said, "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."
A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience.
Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing,
speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or a
lack of originality.
Etymology
The word cliché is borrowed from French, where it is a past passive participle of clicher, 'to click', used as a noun; cliché is attested from 1825 and originated in the printing trades. The term cliché was adopted as printers' jargon to refer to a stereotype, electrotype, cast plate or block print that could reproduce type or images repeatedly.
It has been suggested that the word originated from the clicking sound
in "dabbed" printing (a particular form of stereotyping in which the
block was impressed into a bath of molten type-metal to form a matrix).
Through this onomatopoeia, cliché came to mean a ready-made, oft-repeated phrase.
Usage
Using a feature such as an overhanging branch to frame a nature scene may be described as a visual cliché.
Various dictionaries recognize a derived adjective clichéd, with the same meaning.Cliché is sometimes used as an adjective, although some dictionaries do not recognize it as such, listing the word only as a noun and clichéd as the adjective.
Thought-terminating clichés, also known as thought-stoppers, or semantic stopsigns, are words or phrases that discourage critical thought and meaningful discussion about a given topic. They are typically short, generic truisms that offer seemingly simple answers to complex questions or that distract attention away from other lines of thought. They are often sayings that have been embedded in a culture's folk wisdom and are tempting to say because they sound true or good or like the right thing to say. Some examples are: "Stop thinking so much", "here we go again", and "so what, what effect do my [individual] actions have?"
The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.
Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is
characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching
and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly
reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily
expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological
analysis".
Sometimes they are used in a deliberate attempt to shut down debate,
manipulate others to think a certain way, or dismiss dissent. However,
some people repeat them, even to themselves, out of habit or conditioning, or as a defense mechanism to reaffirm a confirmation bias.
A sarcastic response written on a table that reads "Wow, you are SO deep!"
Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection with which it is spoken or, with an undercurrent of irony, by the extreme disproportion of the comment to the situation, and is largely context-dependent.
Etymology
The word comes from the Ancient Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós) which is taken from σαρκάζειν (sarkázein) meaning "to tear flesh, bite the lip in rage, sneer".
Tom piper, an ironicall Sarcasmus, spoken in derision of these rude wits, whych ...
However, the word sarcastic, meaning "Characterized by or
involving sarcasm; given to the use of sarcasm; bitterly cutting or
caustic", does not appear until 1695.
Usage
In its entry on irony, Dictionary.com describes sarcasm thus:
In sarcasm, ridicule or mockery is used harshly, often crudely and
contemptuously, for destructive purposes. It may be used in an indirect
manner, and have the form of irony, as in "What a fine musician you
turned out to be!," "It's like you're a whole different person now...,"
and "Oh... Well then thanks for all the first aid over the years!" or it
may be used in the form of a direct statement, "You couldn't play one
piece correctly if you had two assistants." The distinctive quality of
sarcasm is present in the spoken word and manifested chiefly by vocal
inflection ...
Use
of sarcasm in an ad sticker of a boxing studio. The message is negative
and directly mocks, or even jokingly insults, the person targeted by
the advertisement.
Distinguishing sarcasm from banter, and referring to the use of irony in sarcasm, linguist Derek Bousfield writes that sarcasm is:
The use of strategies which, on the surface appear to be appropriate to the situation, but are meant to be taken as meaning the opposite in terms of face management.
That is, the utterance which appears, on the surface, to maintain or
enhance the face of the recipient actually attacks and damages the face
of the recipient. ... sarcasm is an insincere form of politeness which is used to offend one's interlocutor.
Linguist John Haiman
writes:
"There is an extremely close connection between sarcasm and irony, and
literary theorists in particular often treat sarcasm as simply the
crudest and least interesting form of irony." Also, he adds:
First, situations may be ironic, but only people can be
sarcastic. Second, people may be unintentionally ironic, but sarcasm
requires intention. What is essential to sarcasm is that it is overt
irony intentionally used by the speaker as a form of verbal aggression.
Sarcasm does not necessarily involve irony. But irony, or
the use of expressions conveying different things according as they are
interpreted, is so often made the vehicle of sarcasm ... The essence of
sarcasm is the intention of giving pain by (ironical or other) bitter
words.
In psychology
Professionals in psychology and related fields have long looked upon sarcasm negatively,particularly noting that sarcasm tends to be a maladaptive coping mechanism for those with unresolved anger or frustrations. Psychologist Clifford N. Lazarus describes sarcasm as "hostility
disguised as humor". While an occasional sarcastic comment may enliven a
conversation, Lazarus suggests that too frequent use of sarcasm tends
to "overwhelm the emotional flavor of any conversation".
Understanding
Sarcastic comment below a memorial plaque for Alois Alzheimer who first described Alzheimer's disease.
The German text means "Alois, we will never forget you!", subtly
playing with the contradiction between a disease deteriorating the human
memory, the purpose of the memorial and the added text.
Understanding the subtlety of this usage requires second-order
interpretation of the speaker's or writer's intentions; different parts
of the brain must work together to understand sarcasm. This
sophisticated understanding can be lacking in some people with certain
forms of brain damage, dementia and sometimes autism, and this perception has been located by MRI in the right parahippocampal gyrus. Research on the anatomy of sarcasm has shown, according to Richard Delmonico, a neuropsychologist at University of California, Davis, that people with damage in the prefrontal cortex have difficulty understanding non-verbal aspects of language like tone. Neuroscientist David Salmon at the University of California, San Diego,
stated that this type of research could help doctors distinguish
between different types of neurodegenerative diseases, such as
frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
In William Brant's Critique of Sarcastic Reason,
sarcasm is hypothesized to develop as a cognitive and emotional tool
that adolescents use in order to test the borders of politeness and
truth in conversation. Sarcasm recognition and expression both require
the development of understanding forms of language, especially if
sarcasm occurs without a cue or signal (e.g., a sarcastic tone or
rolling the eyes). Sarcasm is argued to be more sophisticated than lying
because lying is expressed as early as the age of three, but sarcastic
expressions take place much later during development (Brant, 2012).
According to Brant (2012, 145–6), sarcasm is
(a) form of expression of language
often including the assertion of a statement that is disbelieved by the
expresser (e.g., where the sentential meaning is disbelieved by the
expresser), although the intended meaning is different from the sentence
meaning. The recognition of sarcasm without the accompaniment of a cue
develops around the beginning of adolescence or later. Sarcasm involves
the expression of an insulting remark that requires the interpreter to
understand the negative emotional connotation of the expresser within
the context of the situation at hand. Irony, contrarily, does not
include derision, unless it is sarcastic irony. The problems with these
definitions and the reason why this dissertation does not thoroughly
investigate the distinction between irony and sarcasm involves the ideas
that: (1) people can pretend to be insulted when they are not or
pretend not to be insulted when they are seriously offended; (2) an
individual may feel ridiculed directly after the comment and then find
it humorous or neutral thereafter; and (3) the individual may not feel
insulted until years after the comment was expressed and considered.
Cultural perspectives on sarcasm vary widely with more than a few
cultures and linguistic groups finding it offensive to varying degrees. Thomas Carlyle
despised it: "Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the
devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it". Fyodor Dostoevsky,
on the other hand, recognized in it a cry of pain: Sarcasm, he said,
was "usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the
privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded." RFC 1855, a collection of guidelines for Internet communications,
includes a warning to be especially careful with it as it "may not
travel well." Another study of sarcasm over email verifies these claims.
A professional translator has advised that international business
executives "should generally avoid sarcasm in intercultural business
conversations and written communications" because of the difficulties in
translating sarcasm.
A 2015 study by L. Huang, F. Gino and A.D. Galinsky of the
Harvard Business School "tests a novel theoretical model in which both
the construction and interpretation of sarcasm lead to greater
creativity because they activate abstract thinking."
Vocal indication
In English, sarcasm is often telegraphed with kinesic/prosodic cues
by speaking more slowly and with a lower pitch. Similarly, Dutch uses a
lowered pitch; sometimes to such an extent that the expression is
reduced to a mere mumble. But other research shows that there are many
ways that real speakers signal sarcastic intentions. One study found
that in Cantonese, sarcasm is indicated by raising the fundamental frequency of one's voice. In Amharic, rising intonation is used to show sarcasm.
Though in the English language there is not any standard accepted
method to denote irony or sarcasm in written conversation, several forms
of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently
attested are the percontation point—furthered by Henry Denham in the 1580s—and the irony mark—furthered by Alcanter de Brahm
in the 19th century. Both of these marks were represented visually by a
⸮ backwards question mark (Unicode U+2E2E). Each of these punctuation
marks are primarily used to indicate that a sentence should be
understood as ironic, but not necessarily designate sarcasm that is not
ironic. By contrast, more recent proposals, such as the snark mark, or the use of the following tilde are specifically intended to denote sarcasm rather than irony. A bracketed exclamation point or question mark as well as scare quotes are also sometimes used to express irony or ironic sarcasm.
In certain Ethiopic languages, sarcasm and unreal phrases are indicated at the end of a sentence with a sarcasm mark called temherte slaq, a character that looks like an inverted exclamation point ¡. The usage directly parallels John Wilkins' 1668 proposal to use the inverted exclamation point as an irony mark. A proposal by Asteraye Tsigie and Daniel Yacob in 1999 to include the temherte slaq in Unicode was unsuccessful.
Sarcasm and irony
While sarcasm (harsh ridicule or mockery) is often directly
associated with verbal irony (meaning the opposite of what is said) and
the two are frequently used together; sarcasm is not necessarily ironic
by definition, and either element can be used without the other.
Examples of sarcasm and irony used together:
"My you're early!" (After one arrives extremely late).
"What a fine artist you've become!" (When meaning to express displeasure).
Example of sarcasm without irony: (frequently attributed to Winston Churchill)
After an onlooker comments on one being drunk: "My dear, tomorrow I will be sober, and you will still be ugly!"
Example of irony without sarcasm:
After a popular teacher apologizes to the class for answering his phone in the other room: "I don't know if we can forgive you!"
Identifying
A French company has developed an analytics tool that claims to have
up to 80% accuracy in identifying sarcastic comments posted online.
The Buddhist monk Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu has identified sarcasm as contrary to right speech, an aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path leading to the end of suffering.
He opines that sarcasm is an unskillful and unwholesome method of
humor, which he contrasts with an approach based on frankly highlighting
the ironies inherent in life.
A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised
falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often
astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of
causing shock and interest in as many people as possible.
Some hoaxers intend to eventually unmask their
representations as having been a hoax so as to expose their victims as
fools; seeking some form of profit, other hoaxers hope to maintain the
hoax indefinitely, so that it is only when skeptical people willing to
investigate their claims publish their findings, that the hoaxers are
finally revealed as such.
Zhang Yingyu's The Book of Swindles (c. 1617), published during the late Ming dynasty, is said to be China's first collection of stories about fraud, swindles, hoaxes, and other forms of deception. Although practical jokes have likely existed for thousands of years, one of the earliest recorded hoaxes in Western history was the drummer of Tedworth in 1661.
The communication of hoaxes can be accomplished in almost any manner
that a fictional story can be communicated: in person, via word of mouth, via words printed on paper, and so on. As communications technology
has advanced, the speed at which hoaxes spread has also advanced: a
rumour about a ghostly drummer, spread by word of mouth, will affect a
relatively small area at first, then grow gradually. However, hoaxes
could also be spread via chain letters, which became easier as the cost of mailing a letter dropped. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century brought down the cost of a mass-produced books and pamphlets, and the rotary printing press of the 19th century reduced the price even further (see yellow journalism). During the 20th century, the hoax found a mass market in the form of supermarket tabloids, and by the 21st century there were fake news websites which spread hoaxes via social networking websites (in addition to the use of email for a modern type of chain letter).
Etymology
The English philologistRobert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon" or (according to Merriam-Webster) "to befuddle often with drugged liquor." Hocus is a shortening of the magicincantationhocus pocus, whose origin is disputed.
Definition
Thomas Ady's A candle in the dark ... (1656) contains one of the earliest mentions of hocus pocus, the origin of the word hoax.
Robert Nares defined the word hoax as meaning "to cheat", dating from Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft.
The term hoax is occasionally used in reference to urban legends and rumours, but the folkloristJan Harold Brunvand
argues that most of them lack evidence of deliberate creations of
falsehood and are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes,
so the term should be used for only those with a probable conscious
attempt to deceive. As for the closely related terms practical joke and prank, Brunvand states that although there are instances where they overlap, hoax
tends to indicate "relatively complex and large-scale fabrications" and
includes deceptions that go beyond the merely playful and "cause
material loss or harm to the victim."
According to Professor Lynda Walsh of the University of Nevada, Reno, some hoaxes – such as the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, labelled as a hoax by contemporary commentators – are financial in nature, and successful hoaxers – such as P. T. Barnum, whose Fiji mermaid contributed to his wealth – often acquire monetary gain or fame through their fabrications, so the distinction between hoax and fraud is not necessarily clear. Alex Boese, the creator of the Museum of Hoaxes,
states that the only distinction between them is the reaction of the
public, because a fraud can be classified as a hoax when its method of
acquiring financial gain creates a broad public impact or captures the
imagination of the masses.
One of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708. Swift predicted the death of John Partridge, one of the leading astrologers in England at that time, in the almanac and later issued an elegy
on the day Partridge was supposed to have died. Partridge's reputation
was damaged as a result and his astrological almanac was not published
for the next six years.
It is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context, such as in the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections.
A hoax differs from a magic
trick or from fiction (books, film, theatre, radio, television, etc.)
in that the audience is unaware of being deceived, whereas in watching a
magician perform an illusion the audience expects to be tricked.
A hoax is often intended as a practical joke or to cause
embarrassment, or to provoke social or political change by raising
people's awareness of something. It can also emerge from a marketing or
advertising purpose. For example, to market a romantic comedy
film, a director staged a phony "incident" during a supposed wedding,
which showed a bride and preacher getting knocked into a pool by a
clumsy fall from a best man. A resulting video clip of Chloe and Keith's Wedding was uploaded to YouTube and was viewed by over 30 million people and the couple was interviewed by numerous talk shows. Viewers were deluded into thinking that it was an authentic clip of a real accident at a real wedding; but a story in USA Today in 2009 revealed it was a hoax.
Governments sometimes spread false information to facilitate their
objectives, such as going to war. These often come under the heading of
black propaganda. There is often a mixture of outright hoax and suppression and management of information
to give the desired impression. In wartime and times of international
tension rumours abound, some of which may be deliberate hoaxes.
Examples of politics-related hoaxes:
Belgium is a country with a Flemish-speaking region and a French-speaking region. In 2006, French-speaking television channel RTBF interrupted programming with a spoof report claiming that the country had split in two and the royal family had fled.
The "Bruno Hat" art hoax, arranged in London in July 1929,
involved staging a convincing public exhibition of paintings by an
imaginary reclusive artist, Bruno Hat. All the perpetrators were
well-educated and did not intend a fraud, as the newspapers were
informed the next day. Those involved included Brian Howard, Evelyn Waugh, Bryan Guinness, John Banting and Tom Mitford
Ern Malley, the popular but fictitious Australian poet
Apocryphal
claims that originate as a hoax gain widespread belief among members of
a culture or organisation, become entrenched as persons who believe it
repeat it in good faith to others, and continue to command that belief after the hoax's originators have died or departed
Computer virus hoaxes became widespread as viruses
themselves began to spread. A typical hoax is an email message warning
recipients of a non-existent threat, usually forging quotes supposedly
from authorities such as Microsoft and IBM. In most cases the payload is an exhortation to distribute the message to everyone in the recipient's address book.
Thus the e-mail "warning" is itself the "virus." Sometimes the hoax is
more harmful, e.g., telling the recipient to seek a particular file (usually in a Microsoft Windowsoperating system);
if the file is found, the computer is deemed to be infected unless it
is deleted. In reality the file is one required by the operating system
for correct functioning of the computer.
Criminal hoax admissions, such as the case of John Samuel Humble, also known as Wearside Jack.
Criminal hoax admissions divert time and money of police
investigations with communications purporting to come from the actual
criminal. Once caught, hoaxers are charged under criminal codes such as
perverting the course of justice and wasting police time.
Hoaxes formed by making minor or gradually increasing changes to a
warning or other claims widely circulated for legitimate purposes
Hoax of exposure is a semi-comical or private sting operation.
It usually encourages people to act foolishly or credulously by
falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as
reality. A related activity is culture jamming.
Hoax news
Hoaxes perpetrated by "scare tactics" appealing to the audience's
subjectively rational belief that the expected cost of not believing the
hoax (the cost if its assertions are true times the likelihood of their
truth) outweighs the expected cost of believing the hoax (cost if false
times likelihood of falsity), such as claims that a non-malicious but
unfamiliar program on one's computer is malware
Hoaxes perpetrated on occasions when their initiation is considered socially appropriate, such as April Fools' Day
Internet hoaxes became more common after the start of social media.
Some websites have been used to hoax millions of people on the Web
Paleoanthropological hoaxes, anthropologists were taken in by the "Piltdown Man discovery" that was widely believed from 1913 to 1953
Protest hoaxes. Members of social movements and other political
activists have often used hoaxes in order to draw attention to causes
and undermine their opponents.
Hoax news (also referred to as fake news) is a news report containing facts that are either inaccurate or false but which are presented as genuine. A hoax news report conveys a half-truth used deliberately to mislead the public.
Hoax may serve the goal of propaganda or disinformation – using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, fake news websites seek to mislead, rather than entertain, readers for financial or political gain.
Hoax news is usually released with the intention of misleading to
injure an organisation, individual, or person, and/or benefit
financially or politically, sometimes utilising sensationalist,
deceptive, or simply invented headlines to maximise readership.
Likewise, clickbait reports and articles from this operation gain
advertisement revenue.
Exploding cigar pellets advertisement from January 1917 edition of Popular Mechanics
An exploding cigar is a variety of cigar that explodes
shortly after being lit. Such cigars are normally packed with a minute
chemical explosive charge near the lighting end or with a non-chemical
device that ruptures the cigar when exposed to heat. Also known as
"loaded cigars," the customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is
as a practical joke,
rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the smoker of the cigar.
Nevertheless, the high risk of unintended injuries from their use caused
a decline in their manufacture and sale.
Although far rarer than their prank cousins, the use of exploding
cigars as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life has
been claimed, and is well represented as a fictional plot device. The
most famous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was an
alleged plot by the CIA in the 1960s to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Notable real-life incidents involving the non-lethal variety include an exploding cigar purportedly given by Ulysses S. Grant to an acquaintance and a dust-up between Turkish military officers and Ernest Hemingway after he pranked one of them with an exploding cigar.
Manufacture and decline
Exploding cigar comic from July 8, 1919 edition of the Oakland Tribune by Fontaine Fox.
The largest manufacturer and purveyor of exploding cigars in the
United States during the middle of the 20th century was the S. S. Adams
Company, which, according to The Saturday Evening Post, made more exploding cigars and other gag novelty items as of 1946 than its next eleven competitors combined.
The company was founded by Soren Sorensen Adams, dubbed the "king of the professional pranksters", who invented and patented many common gag novelties such as sneezing powder, itching powder, the dribble glass and the joy buzzer. The largest New York–based manufacturer of exploding cigars was Richard Appel, a German refugee from Nuremberg, who in or about 1940 opened a gag novelty factory on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
By the time exploding cigars were being turned out by
manufacturers such as Adams and Appel, the chemical explosive variety
had fallen out of favor.
According to Adams, the large-scale switch to a non-chemical device
occurred in approximately 1915 in the aftermath of a death caused by a
homemade exploding cigar rigged with dynamite. Though exploding cigars were not normally rigged with dynamite but with explosive caps using a less powerful incendiary, following the incident, a number of US states banned the product altogether.
The replacement for chemical explosives was a metal spring mechanism,
bound with cord—as the victim puffed away, the cord burned through,
causing the device to spring open, thus rupturing the cigar's end.
However, the decline in the use and advertisement of the
exploding cigar was neither complete, nor permanent, and they can be
obtained worldwide. In the United States, makers include Don Osvaldo and
Hawkins Joke Shop. However, their availability in the US is limited, as
some states, such as Massachusetts, have banned their sale entirely.
Prank exploding cigars have caused many injuries over their
history. For example, in 1902 one Edward Weinschreider sued a cigar shop
for an exploding cigar that burned his hand so badly three of his
fingers had to be amputated.
As has been observed by one legal scholar, "[t]he utility of the
exploding cigar is so low and the risk of injury so high as to warrant a
conclusion that the cigar is defective and should not have been
marketed at all."
Laws have been enacted banning the sale of exploding cigars entirely,
such as Chapter 178 of Massachusetts' Acts and Resolves, passed by its
legislature in 1967.
In fiction
Both
prank and intentionally deadly exploding cigars have been featured in
numerous works of fiction, spanning many forms of media including
literature, film, comics books, cartoons and others. A well-known use of
the exploding cigar in literature, for example, appears in Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, Gravity's Rainbow.
In it, the character Etzel Ölsch symbolically betrays his death wish by
eagerly smoking a cigar he knows to be of the prank explosive variety. Other book examples include Robert Coover's 1977 novel, The Public Burning, where a fictionalized Richard Nixon hands an exploding cigar to Uncle Sam, and Sherburne James' Death's Clenched Fist (1982), in which a Tammany Hall politico of the 1890s is murdered with an exploding cigar.
Film examples include Cecil B. DeMille's 1921 romance Fool's Paradise, wherein the main character is blinded by an exploding cigar; Laurel and Hardy's Great Guns (1941), which features a gag in which tobacco is replaced by gunpowder;
in Road To Morocco (1942) with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope features the
duo mixing gunpowder with tobacco in order to create chaos and escape a
desert sheik with their girls; the Elke Sommer vehicle, Deadlier Than the Male (1967), where a murder by exploding cigar is a key plot element; in The Beatles' 1968 animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, where an exploding cigar is used to rebuff a psychedelic boxing monster; the 1984 comedy Top Secret!, in which Omar Sharif's British secret agent character is pranked with an exploding cigar by a blindman; and in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, where the main antagonist's cigar is swapped with an exploding one during a comedy skit.
The appearance of exploding cigars in the Warner Bros. cartoon franchises, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes was fairly common, often coupled with the explosion resulting in the pranked character appearing in blackface. Some examples include: Bacall to Arms (1942), wherein an animated Humphrey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar leaving him in blackface, 1949's Mississippi Hare, where the character Colonel Shuffle likewise ends up in blackface after the explosion, 1952's Rabbit's Kin, in which Pete Puma offers Bugs Bunny
an exploding cigar (true to form, Bugs Bunny turns the tables on the
hapless feline, placing the cigar in Pete's mouth after he is dazed and
lighting it with expected results), and 1964's Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, where the Tasmanian Devil successfully gets Bugs Bunny to smoke an exploding cigar.
Other media examples include television appearances such as when Peter Falk's Columbo must solve an industrial magnate's death by exploding cigar in the episode "Short Fuse" (1972), in a season four episode of the United States television, CBS crime drama, CSI: NY titled "Child's Play", wherein the forensic team investigate the death of a man killed by an exploding cigar, and in a 1966 episode of The Avengers entitled "A Touch of Brimstone"; in video games such as Day of the Tentacle where Hoagie can offer George Washington an exploding cigar; and as a stock device by the Joker in Batman comic books. For example, in Batman #251 (1973) entitled "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", an exploding cigar containing nitroglycerin is used by the Joker to kill one of the members of his gang. The Adventures of Tintin comics have occasionally utilized prank exploding cigars against Captain Haddock.
In reality
Ulysses S. Grant's delayed gift
According to a 1932 Associated Press story, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant
gave Horace Norton, the founder of a now defunct college in Chicago, an
exploding cigar soon after being introduced to him, but the "joke"
wasn't revealed until many years later.
According to the story, unaware of the nature of the gift, Norton
saved the cigar, keeping it on display in his college's museum. Years
later, when the school was shutting its doors for good, the alumni
thought it would be a fitting gesture to smoke the cigar at the
college's annual reunion. The honor was given to Winstead Norton,
Horace's grandson. During the sober speech he was presenting, Winstead
lit the cigar, and after two puffs, it exploded.
A 1952 news report contradicts one detail, holding that the explosion
ultimately occurred at a family reunion rather than the alumni affair
noted.
The tale of "Grant's cigar" has unquestionably been embellished over time. The possibility exists that the tale is a hoax or urban legend or that the cigar was tampered with by someone after Grant's purported presentation.
Ernest Hemingway
Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway, urged on by a group of journalists with whom he was drinking at the Palace Hotel bar in Rapallo, Italy, presented an exploding cigar to one of four bodyguards of Turkish general İsmet İnönü.
When the cigar "went off", all four guards drew their guns and aimed at
Hemingway. He apparently escaped without any grievous bodily injury.
In the late 1950s under Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential administration and in the early 1960s under John F. Kennedy's, the CIA had been brainstorming and implementing plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, going as far as enlisting the help of American Mafia leaders such as Johnny Roselli and Santo Trafficante, Jr. to assist in carrying out their plans.Many assassination ideas were floated by the CIA in the covert operation which was dubbed "Operation Mongoose."
The most infamous was the CIA's alleged plot to capitalize on Castro's
well known love of cigars by slipping into his supply a very real and
lethal "exploding cigar." A November 4, 1967 Saturday Evening Post article reported that during Castro's visit to the United Nations in 1966 a CIA agent approached NYPD chief inspector Michael J. Murphy with a plan to get Castro to smoke an exploding cigar.
While numerous sources state the exploding cigar plot as fact, at least one source asserts it to be simply a myth, while another suggests it was merely supermarket tabloid fodder.
One source theorizes that the story does have its origins in the CIA,
but that it was never seriously proposed by them; rather, the plot was
made up by the CIA as an intentionally "silly" idea to feed to those
questioning them about their plans for Castro, in order to deflect
scrutiny from more serious areas of inquiry.
Whether true or not, the CIA's exploding cigar assassination plot inspired the cover of the October 1963 issue (#82) of Mad Magazine. Conceived by Al Jaffee,
the cover (pictured at right) bears the headline, "You'll Get a BANG
out of this issue of Mad Magazine", and features a painting by Norman Mingo depicting Castro in the act of lighting a cigar wrapped with a cigar band on which is drawn Alfred E. Neuman with his fingers plugging his ears, awaiting the explosion. An exploding cigar is also featured on the poster for the Channel 4 British Documentary, 638 Ways to Kill Castro, which shows Castro with a cigar in his mouth that has a fuse projecting from the end and a lit match approaching. An exploding cigar was tested on a season 2 episode of Deadliest Warrior, KGB vs. CIA;
the cigar completely destroyed the upper and lower jaw of a gel head,
but was determined to be very unreliable due to its timed fuse and small
explosive payload.
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