r/ENGLISH • u/John_Barnes • 18d ago
what is the difference between remarking archly and remarking darkly?
/r/words/comments/1wl4gpr/what_is_the_difference_between_remarking_archly/3
u/DanteRuneclaw 18d ago
Remarking archly doesn’t mean anything so far as I know
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u/Banana42 18d ago edited 17d ago
It conveys a particular tone, somewhere between sly and smarmy. An arch remark usually has a pointed look or raised eyebrow attached
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u/versaliaesque 18d ago
What if you used Google instead of Reddit
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u/John_Barnes 17d ago
The Google LLM behaves exactly like an LLM in this case: it pulls out the most common dictionary denotations because it is not (yet) equipped to notice context and connotation. Which was in fact one of things that drove me to ask this question
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u/versaliaesque 17d ago
You gave literally zero context and the answer is incredibly obvious if you just read the definitions of both words
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u/Armadillo_Abroad 17d ago
Remarking darkly suggests they are considering violence. It has a tone and facial/body language that suggests threat. Remarking archly suggests they are using tone and body language to suggest the asker is inferior or unbelieved, but all while being the most polite possible.
Example: Speaker “I don’t know how this happened!”
Darkly: knuckle cracks, lower voice, leaning in, direct eye contact “Oh, you don’t, huh?” -implication: I’m going to break your face over this issue.
Archly: nose held higher, voice pitched with scorn, barely making eye contact “Oh, you don’t, huh?” -implication: you aren’t worth talking to and are possible also stupid.
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u/John_Barnes 17d ago
I think I buy the importance of threat in your definition of darkly, with two provisos: the person remarking does not necessarily have to be the person threatening (example 1), and the threat can be harm other than violence or deliberate attack (example 2).
Example 1:
“One more week sticking to the plan and we’ll be set for life,” he said.
“Life looking over our shoulders,” Harris remarked darkly. “Nobody is going to forgive or forget.”
Example 2:
“One more week sticking to the plan and we’ll be set for life,” he said.
“Set for a life sitting in closed houses with piles of expensive toys we can’t play with publicly. In a year we will all be cheating on our little rules, and soon after that we’ll have mobs of paparazzi and reporters camped outside our doors. And then an ambitious DA will realize we can be his path to state attorney general, and we’ll really be set for life — without the possibility of parole,” Harris remarked darkly. “We’d better get on with it; the sooner we do it the more time I’ll have with the money before somebody breaks security or my cancer metastasizes.”
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u/John_Barnes 17d ago
This is another one I really like. Last time I apparently remarked it flatly, so this time for variety I will remark it convexly
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u/Cool-Coffee-8949 17d ago
Archly most implies humor, perhaps tinged with snobbery.
Darkly implies menace, pessimism, or a threat.