Words and expressions
1. I felt very conspicuous leaving the theater with his hand still in my hair, and going home on the bus several people gave us “funnylooks.”
conspicuous: very easy to notice
仿写: Most people don't want to be too conspicuous.
2. One column was on the petty squabbling over the shape of the table at the Vietnam peace conference in Paris.
petty: small and unimportant
aquabble over: to argue about something unimportant
仿写: They’re always squabbling over the petty things.
3. Onto this element of constant surprise he grafted the dazzling wordplay that was his trademark, a rich and recondite vocabulary, and an erudition based on reading and travel.
recondite: difficult to understand, and not many people know about them
仿写: Her poems are modishly experimental in style and recondite in subject matter.
4. Keillor has the surest eye for social change and the most inventive mind for making his point obliquely.
oblique: not expressed in a direct way
仿写: She gave an oblique look to one side.
Reflection
今天读的内容是写作中的幽默,作者开篇就提到Humor is the secret weapon of the nonfiction writer. 关于这个观点,我想作为读者的我们深有感触,幽默的适当运用,带着的读者是意外之喜,所以,作者又提到了Enjoyment, is what all humorists must convey. 在无限枯燥的理论阅读中,幽默的文风当然能让读者轻松一笑。至于对幽默的要求,作者提到了幽默有度。Humor may seem to be an act of gross exaggeration. But, but control is vital to humor.