My dictionary defines subtle as "not immediately obvious; characterized by skill or ingenuity; clever; elusive; [even] insidious." Let us look at some concrete instances of this. (The very word itself is an example, as the letter" b" is silent in pronunciation.)"
Language can be straight-forward and directly to the point, but sometimes that takes the fun out of it. On occasion, at least, one appreciates subtleties—often as the mark of a quick wit. This particularly is true of jokes that generally have a double meaning. For example: Awaitress received only three pennies for a tip. Nonplussed, she told the customer that those three pennies told a lot about him. He took the bait and asked what they revealed. "The first penny," she said, "tells me you are thrifty." The patron agreed. "what does the second penny say" asked the customer. "It tells me you’re a bachelor." "Right again," he replied, "And what does the third penny tell you" "The third penny," responded the waitress, "tells me your daddy was a bachelor, too." How’s that for a subtle punishment
Subtleties also can be used on occasion for a good putdown. For instance, one can say a certain man was a big gun of industry. "Yes," is the counter, "he was fired several times." In this category was Mark Twain’ s caustic time bomb: "He was a good man—in the worst sense of the term."
In our day of political correctness (sometimes called the tyranny of the minority), police seldom talk about suspects, but only about" persons of interest." I guess law enforcement does not want another lawsuit on its hands. Then, too, with the campaign against fat and fried foods, Kentucky Fried Chicken calls itself KFC, figuring that few will think of "fried" that way.
The meaning of a word or phrase seems to change more rapidly today and unless one is "with it", a faux pas (失礼) can be committed. Such is the case with the term, "an exceptional child." Way back when, one would think that referred to an especially bright youngster, whereas today it indicates a handicapped youth. So, too, the word "primitive" virtually has been erased from our language and replaced with "earlier culture" and Indians are known as Native Americans.
The world of advertising is a master at subtleties with which it hopes to bamboozle (欺骗) the customer. For instance, when asked how much a gallon of gasoline costs, the reply might be something like $2.25. Yet, one must add a penny to that as a 9/10 follows the price, making it, in effect, $2.26. Cereal prices have skyrocketed over the years, but some companies claim to have held the line by keeping the price the same. What many do, however, is reduce the number of ounces in the package.
I leave the reader with the truism that subtlety, not brevity, is the soul of wit. Use it to win friends and influence people.
The underlined word "putdown" (Line 1, Paragraph 3) most probably means （）
A. a pun which can be interpreted in both positive and negative ways
B. a tone-twisting joke which intends to make the hearer puzzled
C. a response by understanding something deliberately in another way
D. an indirect way of saying something to make someone humiliated