"6. Read - or skim through - the book that everybody's reading.

7. Make a tour of your town just as if it were a foreign city.  In a notebook write the incidents connected with its points of interest.  Ask old residents for odd stories of the people of the past.  Tell yourself these stories in the fewest possible words.  You will find many chances to retell them for short laughs or information.

8. Most important of all - in everything you read, watch for clever sayings, smart remarks, unusual expressions.  Draw a line under these or copy them in a small pocket notebook.  Rehearse saying them in a variety of sentences until you feel quite used to them; then try them on the next person you greet, raising your voice at the end of a sentence.

9. Each day find in your reading three interesting and expressive words that you haven't heard in general use, or that you may have heard but haven't had the courage to adopt.  Practice using these.  It will give you a little thrill to hear yourself.

10. Select a humorous anecdote from one of the magazines and practice telling it in the fewest words possible to bring out the point.  Then stop!  Never repeat the point of a joke.  Never laugh at yourself.  This take private rehearsing.

11.  Sharpen your individual interests.  Collect all of the odd stories, jokes, or remarks, that you find on the subjects in which you are interested.  To poke pleasant fun at one's own hobby or taste is as much of an art as being able to draw a cartoon.  Practice, in your own mind, telling these things in a casual manner."

From, 'How to be the Smart Woman,' by Rebecca.

Up to this point, I've been leaving these excerpts largely un-commented upon.  My reason being that it almost seems clumsy and ham-handed ("Never repeat the point of a joke.") for me to have to draw out the humor rather than leaving it nestled in the excerpt itself to be discovered in its natural habitat.  I'm reconsidering this just bc I haver zero self-control and it's more fun for me to rouse the humor and beat it about the head with my billy club than to let it lie.