On Writing Well 11.17

一 words and expressions

1. It was a weird new blight, all the more puzzling because I couldn’t understand when the women took the curlers out.

blight: something which spoils or has a very bad effect on something, often for a long time破坏因素；阴影

•His arrival cast a blight on the wedding day.他的到来破坏了大喜之日的气氛。

2. The targets will change from week to week, but there will never be a dearth of new lunacies and dangers for the humorist to fight.

a dearth of: an amount or supply which is not large enough 不足，缺乏，缺少

3. Marquis was using the cat to leaven his impatience with a type of bore he knew well.

leaven: 给…添趣；为…增色；使生动If a situation or activity is leavened by or with something, it is made more interesting or cheerful.

4. Ultimately we realized that the two are intertwined.

intertwine: to twist or be twisted together, or to be connected so as to be difficult to separate（使）缠结，（使）缠绕在一起；（使）紧密关联

二 thoughts

Control is vital to humor.Don’t make the same kind of joke two or three times—readers will enjoy themselves more if you make it only once.

在生活中也会常常发现，也些人总爱开一些恶俗的玩笑，他们总以为这样能显得幽默诙谐，但事实是令人反感。真正的幽默大师不在于他幽默的频率，而在于对于幽默的掌控，以及幽默背后的东西。

说到在写作中运用幽默的艺术，这使我想起了马克吐温。他的短篇小说百万英镑，是为我们耳熟能详的，在小学学了中文译文，在高中学了英文的原版剧本。这篇百万英镑不仅仅通过对比店员前后变化的滑稽反映金钱的力量——流浪汉也能因它变成上帝，鄙视立刻能被它转化为尊重，更是反映了深刻的社会内涵，有着广阔的时代背景（资本主义迅速发展）。像这样，幽默的背后藏有深意，是我所请钦佩的幽默艺术在写作中的运用。