By：Vincent

Vincent老师从没进过健身房，后来为了减肥，终于鼓起勇气去了一家自助健身。器械不会玩，怕人笑话，所以他选择玩玩跑步机。这个果然so easy，按照操作提示他很快就入手了，玩得很high，用了半个小时，走了3公里，机器提示他已经消耗了一份糖炒栗子的热量。他心想这机器真智能，知道他练完就饿了，这是让他赶紧补补啊，就出门买栗子吃去了。之后他每天都开开心心去练跑步机，风雨无阻，这一冬天练下来，栗子吃了有六七十斤吧，吃得嘴里都长泡了。突然有一天他不练了，因为卖糖炒栗子那家店关张了。

这是我自己写的段子，灵感来自于郭德纲的相声，在我眼里，老郭的相声就像一套煎饼果子，不算什么老字号，但是香菜葱花的配比永远恰到好处，果子也是刚出锅的，外焦里嫩。可是到底为什么这么好吃，总觉得里面有什么不外传的秘诀，直到我读到一篇英国教授John McCrone的研究报告，如夜壶灌顶，茅塞顿开。Vincent老师带你读读这篇雅思阅读文章，看看郭德纲搞笑的秘诀到底是什么。

Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree.Plato expressed the idea that humour is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others.Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies on building up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline.But most modern humour theorists have settled on some version of Aristotle’s belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning. 

“幽默理论有着悠久的历史。柏拉图认为幽默就是一种因感到比别人优越而体会到的快乐的感觉。康德和弗洛伊德认为讲笑话时需要营造一种精神上的紧张气氛，最后抖开笑话的包袱，让其滑稽有趣之处化解这种紧张气氛。但是大多数当代幽默理论家最终都采纳了亚里士多德的观点：笑话的基础就是一种对不和谐情况的反应或解释，这种情况下笑话的关键语句或许就是一句胡言乱语，或者貌似荒唐却聪明地隐含了第二层含义。”

Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humour but language understanding and reasoning in machines.He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift.A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.

这一段话可是爱丁堡的计算语言学家研究的成果，他说“尽管笑话没有固定的模式，但是很多都是围绕某个出其不意的概念转换展开的。喜剧演员会描述一个场景，然后给出一个出人意料却又恰如其分的解释。”这不就是老郭常用的段子形式嘛，制造反差，出其不意。

All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to their own thoughts.Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition.Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response.The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine.Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a person's outlook.