Play Talking

Robin Hanson adds still more to my understanding of irony:

With a little indirection, however, even play talk can communicate on serious important topics. For example, while social rules might forbid directly propositioning others for sex, people often communicate an interest in sex by joking about it in the right way. As long as there are other plausible interpretations of their words and actions, it can be hard for others to accuse them of violating the social rules...

Humans thus developed sophisticated capacities for using play talk to indirectly communicate on serious topics. We became very adept at and fond of playfully talking on two levels at once, especially when the more hidden level talks about or embodies rule violations. We are so fond of this sort of activity and ability, in fact, that we often consider a surplus of it the main reason we like or love someone, and a deficit of it almost a definition of being inhuman. 

But I would add, the saturation and complexity of play talk in our culture is (necessarily) at the edge of our discernment. Sometimes we don't know if other people are play talking or just really talking. Sometimes we don't know if we're play talking.