Can you truly detect emotion and intent (sarcasm for example) over email and/or text messages?

your thoughts . . . .(please)

I can

Most of the time

There have been a few who fooled me completely!

But ya live and learn!!

i also seem to be able to tell. unfortunately while trying to convey sarcasm in a group email meant to be innocent i received some backlash and was hoping to find others who have had a similar problem and maybe some clues on how to prevent future miss-communications.

im usually sarcastic when i email back to someone,but when i put this little guy at the end of my sentence--> all is well.

Tone is a very difficult thing to convey in a short e-mail to someone you hardly know. Although they can look pretty lame at times and some folks tend to over use them, that's what the emotocons are for.

exactly...rather overuse a than not use one enuff...lol

Whenever one attempts to communicate with another, there is a risk of misunderstandings taking place; it's always been the way. Mobile phone texts and emails are perhaps more prone to misinterpretation than other forms of communication, but so long as the language used is clear, there shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Of course, the internet is a dream come true for the confidence trickster, I suppose it's just important to remember that until you've met someone, you haven't actually met someone, so don't make too many assumptions one-way-or-the-other.

well put

no. all my jokes and humorous content get misconstrued as malicious.
most sarcasm and the like needs to come with a disclaimer.


. . .

Because you can't detect tone of voice, and inflection in email and
messaging- it can be hard to know what the other person truly means
when they're speaking to you. Of course -as you get to know someone
you get to know their style of writing!

you can, but it is entirely from context, as tone is absent. (without the extra markings that is)