考研听力基本功4 Passage3

（单词翻译）

Humor,which ought to give rise to only the most light-hearted and gay feeling
[00:05.72]can often stir to up vehemence¹ and animosit
[00:10.40]Evidently it is dearer to us than we realiz
[00:15.07]Men will take almost any kind of criticism except the observation that they have no sense of humo
[00:23.22]A man will admit to being a coward or a liar² or a thief or a poor mechanic or a bad swimme
[00:30.90]but tell him he has a dreadful sense of humor and you might as well have slandered³ his mothe
[00:37.56]Even if he is civilized⁴ enough to pretend to make light of your statemen
[00:42.48]he will secretly believe that he has not only a good sense of humor but one superior to mos
[00:50.68]He has,in other words,a completely blind spot on the subjec
[00:55.82]This is all the more surprising when you consider that not one man in ten million can give you any kind of intelligent answer as to what humor is or why he laughs.