Summary

Ch.19 Humor

Humorist conveys enjoyment, but writing humor is a serious work. Control is vital to humor. The writer should give away gross exaggeration and duplicated jokes. However, humor is elusive and subjective. Everyone has a different threshold of humor. The writer should combine humor with truth and never separate it from normal life, since truth always touches people's heart.

Zinsser suggests several principles for the writer of humor. Firstly, being a good writer is the prerequisite for being a humorist. Then, the writer needs to seize the funny in true life instead of ordinary outlandish and scorn. Finally, humor is built on surprise, and you can surprise the reader only so often.

Vocabulary

solemn

One strong editorial cartoon is worth a hundred solemn editorials.
莊嚴的，嚴肅的
solemn promise/commitment/undertaking/oath/vow 鄭重承諾
e.g. I, __, take you, __, to be my wife (or husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.
[造句] His mood was solemn as the Prime Minister confirmed that Britsh would departure from the European Union.

simmer down

To keep him simmered down, the Owners gave him an Interest.
[informal]（怒火或激動的情緒）平息，冷靜下來，平靜下來
[造句] We waited in silence until he simmered down.

simmer是燉，煨的意思
Simmer vs. Stew:
Simmered means heated to be just barely boiling, or cooked in water or the like that's just barely boiling.
Stewed means cooked in hot water for a long time, so as to soften tough ingredients.

duck, fable, doggerel

Benchley added a dimension of warmth and vulnerability that wasn’t present in humorists like Ade and Marquis, who ducked into impersonal forms like fable and doggerel, where they could hide.
duck （為了避免被看見）趕忙躲起來 to move your head or body downwards to avoid being hit or seen
e.g. He ducked his head and got into the car.
[造句] He ducked into the doorway when we came in.
fable 寓言
the fable of the tortoise and the hare 龜兔賽跑的寓言故事
doggerel 打油詩

intertwine

Ultimately we realized that the two are intertwined.
（使）纏結(jié)，（使）纏繞在一起；（使）緊密關(guān)聯(lián)
E.g.
He's always telling stories in which the present and the past intertwine.
His fate is intertwined with hers.
[造句] The trees' branches intertwined over the road.

only so often

Finally, don’t strain for laughs; humor is built on surprise, and you can surprise the reader only so often.

表示有時，偶爾，略微強調(diào)這是一個少見或者難得情況，也就是說surprise the reader有時也有點難
only so often is an idiom. It means sometimes or occasionally with a slight emphasis on it being a rare occasion.

和every so often意思相近，但是every so often沒有少見或難得的意思
It is similar to every so often, which also means sometimes or occasionally but with a general feeling of being more common.

If I get my hair cut every three months, I might say:
Every so often I get my hair cut.
If my husband only shaves once every two years, I might say:
It's only so often I get to see my husband without a beard.
(reference: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/49545/only-so-often-meaning)

Reflection

幽默很難，成為一個幽默作家更難。說起來幽默，總覺得是搞笑的悲傷，搞笑到最后總是嚴肅和悲傷的，很多喜劇創(chuàng)作者生活中也是很深沉的，大概是能量守恒。

這一章里有非常多的例子，介紹了很多優(yōu)秀的幽默作家，但是很多我都沒有耐心看下去，有時候也抓不到笑點，大概能用英語講個笑話才算是真正的英語入門。說起來笑點這個詞，我一開始想到的竟然是"haha point"，還是默默查了字典，punchline才是最準確的說法。