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ing to the Politeness Principle. 4.2 The Irony Principle According to Leech, irony is a second-order principle that builds on or exploits the Politeness Principle. The Irony Principle (IP for short) may be stated in a general form as follows: “If you must cause offence, at least do so in a way which doesn’t overtly conflict with the Politeness Principle, but allows the hearer to arrive at the offensive point of your remark indirectly, by way of implicature.” [18] Irony can happen if the speaker overvalues the Politeness Principle by blatantly breaking a maxim of the Cooperative Principle in order to uphold the Politeness Principle. For example: A: Geoff has just borrowed your car. B: Well, I like THAT! [19] According to the Irony Principle, we can interpret this ironical utterance this way: what B says is polite to Geoff and is clearly not true. Therefore what B really means is impolite to Geoff and true. Leech believes that the IP can make a speaker impolite while seeming to be polite. In being polite, a speaker is often faced with a clash between the CP and the PP. The speaker has to choose how far to “trade-off” the CP against the PP. In being ironic, a speaker exploits the PP in order to uphold, at a remote level, the CP. The Irony Principle serves the purpose of avoiding direct criticism through ‘being antisocial’, being insincerely polite. This principle explains why some of the Gricean maxims are breached. [20] 5. Irony and verbal humor 5.1 Verbal Humor From the surface meaning of the phrase “verbal humor”, we can easily get its meaning: verbal humor is the humor that is organized through verbal form. Verbal humor is the humor that is created or expressed through language with the assistance of situational context occasionally. Verbal humor can be produced by kinds of figure of speech, say, personification, exaggeration, irony and so on. 5.2 Verbal irony as an approach to verbal humor Verbal irony refers to spoken words only. It occurs when a character says one thing, but suggests or intends the opposite. It is an approach to humor. As an expression of wisdom, irony is frequently used by the great minds, say, writers or philosophers. Example: Bernard Shaw’s Anxiety The exceedingly fascinating and charming American woman dancer Duncan once got off a crack （说俏皮话）to Bernard Shaw: “Sir, given I am in combination with （与……结合） you, and that we have a child who has both my looks and your wisdom and ability. It should be crackerjack （杰出的）.” The commonplace-looking （相貌平平）, Irish writer Bernard Shaw cracked back（回嘴）: “ In case the child only has my looks but your wisdom and ability, that would be crack-brained（发疯的）.”[21] In this story, Bernard Shaw’s Anxiety, what Bernard Shaw said is according to the sentence of the woman dancer Duncan. So they shared the understanding in common and the humor was in effect. Example: Hat and Head Hans Christian Andersen, a Danish nursery tale writer, was born in a humble family. He often wore a torn hat even in the winter. A playboy looked down upon （看不起） him and said unconscionably（肆无忌惮）: “What the shabby （寒酸的） thing on your head? Is that stilled called a hat?” Not to be outdone（胜过）, Andersen countered （对抗） that chap in reply: “What the shabby thing beneath your hat? Is that still called a head?”[22] Here Andersen changed the order of the two words, “hat” and “head”, which helped him to crack back. Humor resulted . Example: A Great Man Einstein once wrote a letter to Charlie C