Nov.17 On Writing Well（Ch19）

讲到幽默感，我平时爱看外国talk show，比如肥伦秀。主持人在不经意间的幽默总能让你会心一笑。但是幽默不是一件容易的事。憨豆先生拍摄了无数让人捧腹大笑的影视剧，但是自身却是有抑郁症、平时少言寡语。

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PART ONE THOUGHTS

Humor is not a separate organism that can survive on its own frail metabolism.

Zinsser谈到写幽默是认真的，幽默并不是一堆杂乱的夸张语句。

大多数幽默建立在基本的事实之上。抓住写好的直接的好的英语的技巧。不要研究古怪和轻蔑的观点，多接触点你所知道真实的有趣的。幽默是建立在惊喜之上的，当你觉得惊喜时你的读者也会感受到。

同时还要把握幽默的度。

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PART TWO VOCABULARY

1.outlandish

Don’t search for the outlandish and scorn what seems too ordinary;

outlandish:strange or extremely unusual

2.lunacy

Joseph Heller and Stanley Kubrick heightened the truth about war just enough to catch its lunacy,

lunacy：behaviour that is stupid or crazy同义词madness

e.g.a comedy show full of inspired lunacy

3.sermon

But that would have been a sermon, and sermons are the death of humor.

sermon:a talk on a moral or religious subject, usually given by a religious leader during a service

4.frail

Humor is not a separate organism that can survive on its own frail metabolism.

frai:lweak; easily damaged or broken

e.g.Human nature is frail.

metabolism:the chemical processes in living things that change food, etc. into energy and materials for growth新陈代谢