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 Chaplin. He said: “Your film ‘The Modern Time’, everybody in the world can understand. You will certainly become a great man. Einstein.”
In his answer to the letter Charlie Chaplin wrote: “ I admire you even more. Your Theory of Relativity nobody in the world understands, but you have already become a great man. Chaplin.”[23]
In this story, Charlie Chaplin was clever to lend irony to amuse and escape from being outdone.
From the above examples, the conclusion can be easily reached as irony is frequently used to produce humor. In other words, the humor feature of irony could be easily found in humor stories.