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A sarcasm mark, also called a sarcasm point, helps the reader identify certain messages as being derogatory or ironic. Although a sarcasm mark exists in the Ethiopic languages,^[1] it is not a standard form of punctuation in English. If accepted, it would serve a similar purpose to the French irony mark in helping the reader to identify and interpret specific types of non-literal language.

Several solutions have been suggested and implemented, most often in the highly informal context of electronic communication (e.g., email, chat rooms and blogs). Traditionally, sarcasm has been communicated implicitly through vocal intonation in oral language and through context in written communication. In the relatively unregulated context of electronic communication, sarcasm has become one of the most prevalent methods of expressing dissatisfaction, and one of the most prevalent forms of humor. Because of the ambiguous nature of sarcastic language, and the concomitant misunderstandings engendered by its use, various people have suggested or enacted solutions to the problem of ensuring that ambiguous language is understood in the way intended.

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Among the solutions adopted by various internet subcultures are:

• A rising movement for the sarcasm mark is using the "^" symbol as a sarcasm mark at the end of sentences. This is practical because often the emoticon with a raised eyebrow is used for showing sarcasm.^{[citation needed]}
• Collegehumor.com forums use plus signs as sarcasm marks. +That was awesome!+^{[citation needed]}
• The Snark, a ligature of the full stop and tilde (~) was proposed to other type designers and typographers at http://www.typophile.com, for signifying all sorts of irony, including verbal irony, such as sarcasm.^[2]

  Oh really.~

• The inverted exclamation point (_¡), probably adapted from the Ethiopic punctuation mark, by Josh Greenman at slate.com:
  Oh really_¡^[3]
• The wink, ;), smile, :), and tongue-out, =P, emoticons have also been used informally, as

  Oh really? ;); or,

  Oh really? =P

• Another common form is to provide emphasis on the word that would be verbally stressed either through italicized or bolded text.

  Oh really.

  Oh really.

  • When bold or italic typefaces are not available or convenient, the verbally stressed word is sometimes enclosed by underscores or slashes.

    Oh _really_.

    Oh /really/.

• Among some internet chatrooms, online messaging networks and forums (most notably Slashdot), SGML-like sarcasm tags have been adopted, as in Oh really?. A common variation is for only the closing tag, or an abbreviation of it ("/sarc") to be used. However, < and > are often filtered to prevent extraneous tags or unwanted rendering behaviour so [ and ] are often substituted. This results in the same faux-BBCode tags: [sarcasm]sarcastic words[/sarcasm]used in many phpBB/vBulletin-based. For a short time, working sarcasm tags were implemented on the Something Awful Forums. The text of a sarcasm element would be displayed boldfaced and dark red:

  Oh really?

• On IRC channels where the full stop at the end of a message is often dropped for speed, some use that to mark sarcasm. ("oh really.")^{[citation needed]}
• On many internet sites the form of exclamation marks inside parentheses is used 'Oh really(!!!)'^{[citation needed]}

In other media:

• In closed captioning in the UK, sarcasm is shown with an exclamation mark or question mark in parentheses, at the end of the sentence:
  Oh really(?)^[4]

• Irony mark
• O RLY?

1. ^ A Roadmap to the Extension of the Ethiopic Writing System Standard Under Unicode and ISO-10646. 15th International Unicode Conference (1999).
2. ^ http://www.typophile.com/node/28817
3. ^ Greenman: “A Giant Step Forward for Punctuation_¡” December 01, 2004.
4. ^ Guidance on Standards for Subtitling, section 2.2: "Tone of Voice" 2003

• DPB: Origin of % mark January 31, 2003.
• The Rise of the Sarcasm Mark (Point)